39
PART III
Federation in East Asia
East Asian
Secretary of the WSCF,
1959-1961
Towards the end of
the General Committee meeting, I received a major surprise. I was told that the
Executive Committee, meeting one evening, had decided to invite me to join the
staff as Secretary for East Asia. That hit me like
a bolt from the blue out of a clear summer sky. I was incredulous, thrilled,
and confused. It took me several months to reach the point of acceptance, and
it took the Federation two years in which to find the funds for the
appointment. Therefore, it was not until Christmas 1958 that I joined the
staff. In the end, only enough money could be raised to make the appointment
possible, if I worked out of Melbourne. So the plans of
moving, as a family, to Japan or Hong Kong had to be abandoned, and we had to
suffer longer periods of separation in order to cope with the higher travel
costs of flying from one end of the area. My area was Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Okinawa, Japan and South Korea. Technically, China and Taiwan were in the area,
but travel to China was not an option
at that time from either the Chinese or Australian government points of view.
To have visited Taiwan would have meant
the withdrawal of the Chinese SCM from the Federation because they had to
comply (and wished to comply) with we One China policy of their government.
That policy affirmed that Taiwan was an integral
part of China and should not be
dealt with except through Peking.
The Federation
decided that it should not take any action, which would debar it from the possibility
of contact with Chinese students, yen contact became possible, I myself agreed
with this position. The decision was made easier by the fact that the WSCF had
no real contacts in Taiwan at that time.
40
Rangoon 1959
I began my service
with the Federation by attending the Rangoon Conference of January 1959.
Because of the need to arrive early for the final preparations and because of
the airline schedule, I had to leave Melbourne on Christmas Eve.
As our children were nine and seven years of age, this was a sad disappointment
for all of us, but unavoidable. KLM compensated by the gift of a cheerful Santa
Claus plate at breakfast time and an excellent formal dinner for staff and
passengers in their pleasant, rambling transit hotel at Bangkok. Before dinner,
a mutual intuition led to the discovery that a young Indonesian man who had
arrived from Djakarta, was also going to the conference.
Therefore, we enjoyed the dinner together. This was the era prior to the
introduction of jets, when flying was slower and noisier, but interspersed with
enjoyable over-night stops. As well as slower, it was also lower, giving a
better view of the scenery below. Arriving over Rangoon, the next morning,
the pilot gave us an excellent, close view of the wonderful golden roof of the
huge Shwe Dagon Buddhist Temple in the middle of
the city.
The Rangoon
Conference was an important, and very successful, pilot project in relation to
the World Conference to be held at Strasbourg in eighteen
months' time. It was an Asian conference for leaders of SCMs, and was a major
event in the WSCF's program on The Life and Mission of the Church.
Central to it was the Bible Study; and, twenty-eight years later, it is the
studies conducted, consecutively, by Paul Verghese and Davis McCaughey, which
remain the main memories of the conference. Paul, at that time, was a young
Indian layman of the Orthodox Syrian Church of the East in India, who was secretary
to Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia. He was later more
widely known as Bishop Paulos Gregorios and, more recently, as the Metropolitan
of Delhi. Davis was Professor of
New Testament Studies at Ormond College, Melbourne, later Master of
Ormond, and now Governor of Victoria. Both were, and are, superb exegetes and
teachers.
The setting was notable.
A Buddhist country in which the main Christian Church is Baptist. A former
British colony very proud of its independence and struggling to find the
appropriate form of national government. Fine intellectual and spiritual
leadership in the Church and in the University with strong commitment to the
WSCF.
41
Immediately after
the conference, there was a leaders' meeting to evaluate and interpret the
conference with reference to the rest of the LMC program. My notes of this
meeting remind me that it was a candid, critical and appreciative assessment.
It also dealt in detail with ways of following up Rangoon in the Asian SCMs,
and with implications of the Rangoon experience for the
Strasbourg conference.
Amongst the latter, were suggestions about the teaching method ('Rangoon gave no new
method. Strasbourg could use a
pioneering approach to a conference. Approach to whole man - not just
intellectual'), and about the importance of 'beginning with the world' (rather
than the church). Hans-Reudi Weber made a number of useful suggestions such as:
'each seminar should prepare a whole series of prayers in relation to their
subject and they should be prayed' (instead of having a lecture on prayer - too
intellectual). He also suggested the use of plays, films and 'the preparation
of a social drama, a mime and a diagrammatic report' - things that have become
parts of conferences over the next decade or so, but rather slowly. I see to my
surprise that I suggested a performance of 'Huis s Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre's
play to which Marie-Jeanne de Haller had drawn the attention of her Bible study
group at Nasrapur. She had contrasted the hopelessness of the closed room of
the play with the hope and vitality of the locked room in Jerusalem when the risen
Christ appeared to his disciples. The contrasting images of the two rooms had
made a deep impression on me and had deepened in the years since. This and some
of the other suggestions were taken up into the planning for Strasbourg, but
the main message of the need to involve students in the planning and conducting
of the teaching method was not really absorbed, as I shall indicate when
recalling Strasbourg.
There was also a
meeting of Asian General Secretaries, which was chiefly concerned with the
situation and problems of Asian SCMs, but also with the follow-up of Rangoon and the LMC
program in Asia.
In the light of all
this, I wrote to Philippe on 27 February 1959 about ‘the
importance of Rangoon’ and made the
following points, as recorded in my notes:
42
1.
The concept of 'the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the Asian
Revolution', which had been a major theme in the Rangoon Conference, became a
faith by which to live.
2.
The renewal of the Church was seen to be an urgent necessity
particularly in terms of turning from a self-contained pietism to a responsible
world-affirming mission.
3.
The other faiths of men (sic) were taken seriously as
living faiths and Christ was seen as standing in judgment over both Christian
and non-Christian. (In this regard, Rangoon is a turning point
in Church history.)
4.
Asians discovered Asia in all its
bewildering unity and diversity, and both the challenge and meaning of the
Asian Revolution was grasped and accepted.
I might well have
added a parenthesis to point 4 (as to point 3) to the effect that this was a
point of advance in Asian history!
At this point, a
note on the relation of Australia and New Zealand to Asia is, perhaps,
appropriate. As early as 1949, some Australian Christian leaders became aware
of the new situation in Asia after the Second
World War with the end of the colonial era. The Rev. J.R. Blanchard was not
only present at the 1949 Bangkok Conferences of the IMC and WCC, but became a
vigorous exponent of the idea that Australia was a part of Asia and should
think of itself as a nation with a Western heritage and an Asian destiny. The
National Missionary Council and the Australian Council of Churches (especially
Victor Coombes and John Garrett) developed relations with Indonesia as it moved into
independence about 1950 or 1951. About the same time, relations between the
Indonesian and Australian SCMs began to develop. In 1956, the WSCF held a
meeting of its newly formed Asian Council, in Bangkok, and a conference
for theological students. Australia was invited to
both and sent representatives. In 1957, the Prapat Conference was held in Indonesia at which the East
Asia Christian Conference (now the Christian Conference of Asia) was formed. The
Australians and New Zealanders, present as observers, were invited to become
members, and they accepted. Therefore, it was quite natural that, in 1959, both
the leadership and membership of Rangoon should include
these 'New Asians'; and that one Australian was beginning work as the WSCF’s
East Asian Secretary.
43
Kentaro Shiozuki,
of Japan, had already become
the WSCF Sectary for Asia and was based in Geneva. He was my 'boss',
as he was also of Bob Bates, of America, who became the
Secretary for South Asia and was based in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon). We worked
happily and smoothly together as colleagues.
Asian Visits 1959
and 1960
After Rangoon, Kentaro and I
visited, briefly, the SCMs in Bangkok and Singapore together. Although
it was more than 13 years since the Japanese Army had surrendered and left
Singapore, for both of us it was a somewhat strange - and yet significant -
experience to be together in that city where Australians and Chinese had
suffered much under the Japanese. We stayed in 'The Happy Home', a small
guesthouse owned and run by an elderly Danish couple, who had remained there
throughout the war and who had accepted and still cared for a considerable
number and variety of animals and birds that had been pets of foreigners forced
to leave them. It was, indeed, a happy home for guests and pets! Our host told
us of a Japanese army doctor called Suzuki who was a Christian and who had
taken great pains in caring for prisoner-of-war patients and some risks in
trying to get medicines for their treatment.
After this,
Kentaro, Charles Long (in charge of the LMC program) and I spent three
fascinating weeks visiting the Indonesian SCM in Java, traveling from one end
to the other and back again meeting and talking with students, university
staff, ministers and laymen in the various educational centers. Everywhere we
received a very warm welcome and a cordial, happy response. Our main purpose
was to convey some of the thinking and significance of the Rangoon Conference
for the life and mission of the Church and the SCM.
Soon after this, I
paid my first visit to the Philippines, Japan and Korea, the beginning of
two years of interesting and exciting travel or the Federation filled with much
joy, some difficulties, and an ever-growing number of friendships with people
of a great variety of nationalities. It would be impossible to write of all
these people, meetings and events. Moreover, it would be wearisome to the
reader to endure all the detail necessary to the telling. Therefore, I append
copies of the travel diaries I wrote for the Student World during that
time. They are from The Student World, No. 4, 1959 and 1961. (See
Appendices VIII and IX)
44
The Strasbourg World Conference, 1960
D.T. Niles had been
much involved in the re-thinking of the missionary task of the Church, which
had characterized the meetings of the IMC since the war, and in discussion of
the significance of the ecumenical movement for the missionary movement. He
himself was a very attractive, intelligent, and persuasive preacher with a
strong commitment to evangelism and to the student world. He was conscious of
the great changes in international Christian thinking, which had resulted from
the study and the work of the IMC and the WCC. He was also acutely aware of the
tremendous challenges and tasks facing the Church throughout the world, and especially,
in Asia. By 1956, he had become convinced of the need to pass on to
the younger generation the insights and experience gained and to train them to
accept the challenges of their generation. Therefore, he had the vision of a
great world teaching conference. He and Philippe brought to the General
Committee at Tutzing, on behalf of the Executive Committee a proposal for 'a
major effort of study and teaching in the field of ecumenical and missionary
questions centered on "The Mission of the Church ". (Tutzing Minutes,
p.90). As the Minutes make clear, there was 'a very long discussion' in which
both criticisms and suggestions were voiced. There was skepticism about the
concept of a teaching conference that was being presented as an occasion when
the leaders would convey the truth and pass on the torch to the young. I shared
in this and criticized this approach. However, both D.T. and Philippe were very
strong men and they pushed the proposal vigorously. (I recall making a mental
note, during the debate, that they both had very strong, firm lower jaws! I
noted this with affection and humor, for, although I was critical of their
proposal, I had a great respect and liking for both of them.)
In the end, time
was running out. The General Committee agreed in principle to an amended
version consisting of 'a major world conference of a teaching character',
proceeded by a regional meeting in Asia and followed by
several regional meetings. 'All this chain of meetings should be prepared and
followed by intensive study in all
45
Student Christian
Movements’. This last provision resulted in the extensive study program on ‘The
Life and Mission of the Church’ for
which the WSCF produced a useful series of study outlines. I recall that these
had considerable use and influence in Australia and Japan, as well as
elsewhere. Also, the title ‘Life and Mission of the Church’,
LMC for short, became common parlance, and this helped to highlight the idea in
the thought of the SCMs.
D.T. delivered the
first address at Strasbourg and experienced
what he had been warned of. The student audience reacted against his 'teaching'
concept. This was a rare occasion when this extraordinarily able communicator
'missed the bus'. He had to alter his approach.
Much has been
written about 'Strasbourg' for it had a
disturbing impact. It became a moment of great change and it ushered in that
decade of change. It had been planned in the light of the steadily developing
theological thought of the previous 35 years, and beyond that, of the lessons
of more than a century of Protestant missionary experience. (One number of The
Student World had been devoted to the lessons of history, in preparation
for Strasbourg.) But by July
1960, unnoticed, almost subterranean, elements broke through the surface,
rather like molten lava bursting through new fissures or orifices in a volcano.
There was Hans Huykoendyk of the Netherlands calling for the
'de-sacrilizing' of the Church in the light of the emergence of the secular
age.
There were many
student voices attacking institutionalism and, in particular, the institutional
nature of the churches, but also that of the Federation. That was a shock for
both older and younger WSCF leaders, for to them the WSCF had always been a
student movement. Now here were some students calling it an institution
and saying it was not really all that different from the institutionalized
churches in that sense. There was a remarkable address from a young French
woman, Francoise (Florentin?), early in the conference in which she asserted that
French thinkers and students could see little but 'the brokenness' of life.
This was a very alien view of the World for most Australians, Americans and
others. And there was one trickle of lava seeking a fuller opening -
Pan-Africanism and the drive to national independence in Africa. (Seven years
earlier at Nasrapur, there had only been one black African - Bola Ige from Nigeria, which was not
then a member Movement.
46
At Tutzing, four
years earlier, Nigeria was the only
affiliated. African movement other than South Africa; and there were
two Associated Movements, Gold Coast and Sierra Leone, and one
Corresponding Movement, Liberia. At Strasbourg, there were enough
Black Africans to think in terms of separate rooms for those whose lingua
franca was French and those who communicated through English. No sooner had
the rooms for regional meetings been announced than there came a strong and
vocal demand for one room in order to give expression to their desire to be
together for the sake of Pan-Africanism. I had, quickly, to find a room large
enough for them all to be together.) These were some of the unexpected forces
that shook the foundations at Strasbourg and which found wider expression
during the 1960s in the 'God is Dead' movement, the spread of secularization,
the decline of the SCMs and the Church Youth Movements, the assault on, and
rejection of, institutions of all kinds, the contagion of despair, and the
movements against racism. At the time, of course, we did not see all this as
things that were likely to happen. We were simply aware of the rumbling beneath
and around us, and were uncertain of its significance or of its continuance,
except that anti-institutionalism seemed to be real and likely to stay.
Another major
characteristic emphasis was that the Church exists for the sake of the world
'and that the life of the Church is life for the world' (Minutes of
Thessaloniki General Committee, 1960). So there was a strong insistence on the
need for Christian bodies of all kinds, including SCMs, to be in contact and in
active dialogue with 'the world, i.e., with those of whatever belief or
non-belief, or whatever ideology or political allegiance. This was the
beginning of the emphasis on the phrases, which were to become prominent,
during the next 20 years, such as, 'Christians must learn to listen' and 'it is
the world which sets the agenda for the churches’. One way in which this was
begun at Strasbourg was by a staged
presentation of Jean-Paul Sartre's Play Huis Clos.
Altogether, Strasbourg was a lively, dynamic
experience in which 600 men and women from 70 countries met in an exciting and
creative encounter. It was by no means a failure or a spate of negativism.
There were many
highlights, impressive moments, and illuminating ideas and statements. One of
these was the opening service in St. Guillaume's Church where men and women out
of many nations, races and cultures joined together in common worship, where
the organ pealed out a Bach prelude, where each hymn was sung simultaneously in
several languages and the Lord's Prayer was said in scores of tongues and
dialects. Jean Bosc, a French theologian, preached on Acts 1:8 - you shall be
witnesses to me to the ends of the earth - and commented: 'Here the ends of the
earth have come together'. Later in the sermon, he said: 'We talk of the ends
of the earth, but the earth is round'. With that one sentence he challenged the
traditional way of thinking about the Christian mission as progressing from Jerusalem to Europe and then to the
'ends of the earth', as being a 'Western' mission. That sentence continued to
stimulate my thinking for the rest of my life, especially with its implication
that the task of witness goes on everywhere in the round world.

Robert Mackie,
former Chairman WSCF, and wife Dorothy
48
I see from a letter
I wrote home at the time that 'Newbigin gave a superb address on "God so
loved the world " and the problem of communication', and that Hromadka, of
Prague, was 'terrific' and preached most effectively at an immensely impressive
service of Holy Communion in St. Paul's Church. I recall
the visit of Karl Earth and his session of answering questions asked by
students and others with many touches of delightful humor. And there was
Visser't Hooft's address on being with Jesus - simple, direct, profound. He had
written a valuable book as part of the preparation for Strasbourg, The Pressure
of Our Common Calling, in which he had developed the themes of witness,
unity and service. I had had the temerity to suggest, in a letter, that I
missed the note of worship in his book - which worship is at the core of
Christianity and of the Christian life; that the other things spring from that.
He did not reply, nor in his address did he make any overt reference to
'worship', but he emphasized that the central aspect of a Christian's life was
'to be with Jesus'. We met face to face, as he was leaving the hall. He smiled
and said, 'You have your reply'. And, indeed, I did. Nor have I ever forgotten
it. In his Memoirs, he quotes David Edwards' comment on Strasbourg: 'There seemed to
be too much speaking about the life of the church; what students wanted was
action in the world. And there seemed to be too much mission; what students
wanted was a welcome to this world.' (p.366)
Christian Peace
Conference, Prague 1960
Following Strasbourg and Thessaloniki, I was sent to the
third session of the Christian Peace Conference in Prague, which was a
preparation for the All-Christian Peace Assembly of June 1961 (See Josef L.
Hromadka, Student World, No.4, 1960, p.474). Philippe was unable to go,
but it was felt important by the Officers that there should be someone there
from the WSCF in case there was a Chinese delegation present. There had not
been any Chinese at Strasbourg or Thessaloniki although we had
hoped someone might arrive even at the last moment. Perhaps there would be
someone at Prague since that was in
the Eastern bloc and the conference was an Eastern bloc initiative, although a
world meeting. So, off I was sent because of my Tutzing contacts with the
Chinese. Alas, the Chinese never arrived. It was, nevertheless, a good thing
that the Federation was
49
represented because
Hromadka, the presiding genius, had been a Federation leader all his life,
because the WSCF had been concerned for Christian – Marxist dialogue and to
keep open relations with the International Union of Students (see Tutzing and
Thessaloniki Minutes), and because Milan Opocensky of Czechoslovakia, had been
at Strasbourg and had urged the need for contact and dialogue between East and
West.
In this connection,
it is interesting to note that the report of the Section on Politics at Thessaloniki includes these
sentences:
As we look back
over the last period, it seems to us that the WSCF's concern to maintain unity
within its fellowship, almost at all costs, has too often prevented the
Federation from doing or saying anything at all. When we are silent or overcautious
about controversial political questions, it often happens that our unity is
broken instead of being preserved. Unity that is based on the avoidance of
issues is false unity. We need to find ways to renew an active dialogue, as a
real Christian community within the WSCF as well as within member Movements; on
points of theological or political controversy to speak the truth to one
another in charity, but with frankness, and not to fear the expression of
differing points of view. We recommend open discussion of issues such as the
following:
East-West conflict
Race relations
Economic imperialism
The positive role of neutral nations
The control of nuclear weapons
The difference between the IFES and the WSCF
in their attitude towards political questions.
Aid to countries with basic economic needs
Conflicts in the Near East
Fiji
On my journey home from Prague via Geneva, I called in at Fiji to visit a young SCM, which was developing because of
the enthusiasm of former Australian SCMers working there as teachers and
medical staff and of students in secondary schools. It was a time of industrial
tension in Fiji with sugar-cane farmers taking violent action in support of their
rights. However, I did not experience any trouble, or hear any shooting, at the
roadblocks. The welcome I received from Australians, Fijians and Indians was
warm, in the cordial sense of that word, and there was much keenness to
establish the SCM and to have continuing links with the WSCF.
50
Some final Comments
and Reflections
In March 1961, I
completed my service on the staff. That was a very sad moment for, although my
travels had been strenuous and demanding, and although they had coincided with
periods of serious ill health for both my wife and myself, they were
extraordinarily interesting and rewarding. It was a great privilege to be
involved in the problems, hopes, dreams and struggles of students in so many
different countries, and to help them to share in the richness of a world
community as Christian students and work for reconciliation between nations,
races and denominations in the name of Christ. In November 1960, during my last
visit to Korea, I wrote:
It was a thrill to
see the three student organizations (Student YMCA, Student YWCA and Korean
Student Christian Federation) working together at last - to see real fruit in
unity after all my efforts in 1953 and 1959.
Of course, my
efforts were only of a stimulating, catalytic kind. The leaders and members of
the three organizations did the real work of uniting, of creating the
enthusiasm and commitment, of forming the structure of the Korean Student
Christian Council, and of developing its program, year by year. In 1961, the
first united national conference was held at Inchon. At it were four
Japanese students and two leaders who, subsequently, toured Korea for a fortnight;
and there were visits of Korean students and professors to Japan. (See Appendix X,
Dale Robbe, last page).
There can never be
any itemizing and recording of the influence of the SCMs and the WSCF on the
thousands of students whose minds, lives and goals have been influenced,
altered and enriched by coming into lively fellowship with other students and
together discovering a common loyalty to Christ and joining in serving hi5
purpose of one world. To write these recollections is to be reminded of
people involved in a rich, developing and on-going process in countless places
and tasks throughout the world. It is wonderful to have such memories and to
find that they are still being added to. Colleagues, whether of the staff or of
the committees, became happy friends, and caring ones.
51
I treasure the
memories of my times spent at headquarters in the lovely old eighteenth century
building at 13 rue Calvin where time was punctuated by the musical chimes of
the bells of Saint Pierre nearby, and where
the gracious and friendly Inga Stauffer presided efficiently over the
international office staff as Chef de Bureau. She, like the others in that
office, was kind to me when, periodically, I flew in from East Asia. I shared an
office with Mauricio Lopez, the Latin American Secretary, and a philosopher
from Argentina. In those days, he
was excited like many Latin Americans, by the hope kindled by Fidel Castro's
revolution in Cuba. When he left the
staff, he taught philosophy at the University of Mendoza in Argentina, until New Year's
Day (was it 1976?) when there came a fateful knock on the door and he was taken
away by strange men never to be seen again. That was the third bereavement
amongst our leading colleagues. In 1967, Philippe Maury, who had been Director
of Communication for the World Council of Churches since leaving the WSCF,
died suddenly after an operation. In 1971, his successor as General Secretary
of the Federation, Valdo Galland, of Uruguay, died of cancer in
Geneva. Three delightful
friends stricken down in so short a time. That has remained a personal sorrow
and a puzzling loss to the ecumenical movement and to the intellectual
leadership of the churches and the university world. There is a good tribute to
Philippe in the Thessaloniki Minutes on the occasion of his impending
retirement as General Secretary. As it makes clear, he was a remarkable and
imaginative leader and administrator and a cheerful and charming friend; and
all this in spite of recurring health Problems.
The same Minutes
contain a resolution of thanks to D.T. Niles on the completion of his
chairmanship. He too was a vigorous, inspired and inspiring leader. He called
forth not only admiration for his ability as a thinker, speaker and strategist,
but also warm affection, devotion to the common cause under his leadership.
He was succeeded by
Philip Potter - another great chairman - a remarkable communicator, and fine
friend, an aspiring and courageous leader and a warmhearted person.
52
How fortunate the
Federation was in the fact that these two followed so ably those chairmen who
had formed and molded the WSCF from 1895 to 1953 - Karl Fries, John Mott,
Francis Miller, Wilhelm Visser't Hooft and Robert Mackie. Seven such chairmen
of vision and ability, each with remarkable and distinctive gifts of his own,
constitute a blessing of almost unbelievable proportions to the WSCF in the
first 70 or so years of its history. And each of them contributed brilliant
leadership to the whole ecumenical movement during and after his chairmanship,
even as those whom they led, inspired and taught became the leaders, members
and supporters of the ecumenical movement at world, national and local levels
around the globe - a great company of Christians united under the WSCF motto, Ut
Omnes Unum Sint, and committed by their common loyalty to Christ to work
together for the realization of that prayer of his: that they may all be one.
Postscript
In writing these
Recollections, I have been struck by the influence, which certain phrases and
titles had on me. Each quarter. The Student World appeared in its
attractive brown cover with two thin, red, horizontal stripes and the motto UT
OMNES UNUM SINT in firm black type. At the beginning of 1937, the theme of the
first number was 'The End of the Christian Era?' Twelve months later, the theme
was 'The University - Unity or Diversity?' Inside, the editorial highlighted
David Paton's phrase 'a University in a University which is not a University'
as a description of the SCM. In his article on 'A Modern University in England', he had written:
'In a real sense, therefore, the SCM is called to be a true University inside a
University which is not a University'. A decade later, there was the title of
Sir Walter Moberly's book. The Crisis in the University-These phrases
and titles were trail-blazers, and were particular" influential in
focusing, stimulating and directing thought. They exerted power throughout many
years of my life. In addition, the articles provided substance, food to nourish
thought on these themes and problems.
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