"It was a sign of the times that in the discussion about the vertical and horizontal aspects of the faith, not only [at the W.C.C. Assembly] in Uppsala [in 1968] but also after the Assembly, the most frequently quoted sentence from this [(from my)] address was: 'It must become clear that church members who deny in fact their responsibility for the needy in any part of the world are just as much guilty of heresy as those who deny this or that article of faith.' If I had known beforehand that this sentence would become so popular, I would have added a complementary phrase such as: 'And church members who deny that God has reconciled men to himself in Christ are just as much guilty of heresy as those who refuse to be involved in the struggle for justice and freedom for all men and who do nothing to help their brethren in need.' For it seems to me that the health of the ecumenical movement depends on our readiness to stand with equal firmness for these two convictions at the same time."
W. A. Visser't Hooft, Memoirs (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973; 2nd ed., unchanged, Geneva: WCC Publications, 1987), 363.
No comments:
Post a Comment