A Pentecostal looks at the World Council of Churches

Missed opportunity

When the second assembly of the World Council of Churches covened in Evanston, outside Chicago, in August 1954, two Pentecostal leaders were present. The first was David J. du Plessis, a South African who had emigrated to the United States in 1948. Du Plessis had played a leading role in the development of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) in South Africa, editing the denomination's bilingual periodical Comforter/Trooster and from 1936 to 1947 serving as general secretary of the AFM.(1)

In 1947, while working with the Pentecostal World Conference (PWC), du Plessis began what would become a forty-year international ministry of building bridges between Pentecostals and acting as an independent spokesperson for and interpreter of the Pentecostal movement. This led him in 1952 to attend the meeting of the International Missionary Council in Willingen, Germany, where his indefatigable apology for Pentecostalism resulted in his nickname, "Mr. Pentecost".(2) It was at this meeting that he met W.A. Visser 't Hooft, who invited him to serve as a member of the WCC staff in Evanston in exchange for room and board. Because du Plessis was at that time employed by the Far East Broadcasting Corporation, Visser 't Hooft assigned him to the broadcasting and television staff where he coordinated "non-English speaking delegates for radio and television and press conferences".(3) The following year du Plessis became a minister of the Assemblies of God.(4)

The second Pentecostal leader at Evanston was J. Roswell Flower. Like du Plessis, Flower had been the editor of a weekly publication, The Pentecostal Evangel. He had served in a variety of positions with the Assemblies of God and in 1954 was both general secretary of the Assemblies of God and acting secretary for the 1955 Pentecostal World Conference.(5) Flower was an official observer in Evanston,(6) and although unable to stay for the entire assembly he participated in Section II, Group 5, which dealt with evangelism among members of "non-Christian faiths".(7)

While du Plessis and Flower were the only Pentecostal leaders in attendance at Evanston, they were joined in spirit by a third man, Donald Gee, an Assemblies of God minister from England. In 1947 Pentecostals from around the world had gathered in Zurich, where they founded the PWC.(8) While many had hoped that it might function for Pentecostals like an international Pentecostal council of churches, it quickly became apparent that this would not happen. Nevertheless, it did establish an ongoing office in Basel, helped to coordinate relief efforts in post-war Europe and authorized the publication of a quarterly magazine called Pentecost, whose purpose was to gather and disseminate news of Pentecostal missionary and revival activity. Donald Gee was tapped to serve as its editor and was "answerable to God alone".(9)

Gee's relative independence enabled him to play a prophetic role within the Pentecostal movement. When the first assembly of the WCC took place in Amsterdam in 1948, Donald Gee had lamented that no Pentecostals had participated. After all, he contended, Pentecostals share the same universal desire for greater interdenominational fellowship that the rest of the church had. The unity which the first assembly represented, he argued, was so consistent with Jesus' prayer "'that they all may be one' that it would be churlish... not to welcome its progress".(10)

At the conclusion of the Evanston assembly, therefore, Gee was anxious to report on the World Council's progress. J. Roswell Flower supplied him with resources about the assembly, and Gee published a report submitted by du Plessis. Gee's editorial, "Pentecost and Evanston", made reference to the participation of Flower and du Plessis at the assembly, and Gee reported that he himself had attended an early debriefing on the assembly in England conducted by the Anglican George Appleton.(11) While Flower wrote nothing on the assembly for publication, he did leave behind a five-page, single-spaced typewritten report covering his week there.(12)

A quick review of the accounts given by du Plessis, Gee and Flower reveals several common threads. Each was impressed with the quality and scope of the work undertaken by the WCC to make the assembly a sucess. Each was convinced that there was something genuine about this particular quest for visible unity. Each reported on the quality of spirituality of the participants and the level of koinonia he experienced, saw or heard about in reports on the assembly. And each was overwhelmed by the immensity of the task which lay before the Council of balancing the quest for visible unity with acknowledgment of the diversity of the church worldwide. Gee observed that the only way forward was to accept a "free cooperation" which would also respect "existing denominational autonomy". His conclusion was that in light of this very real impasse, "Christians might be more willing to study the idea that their true unity subsists in the Spirit and not in organization".(13)