Episcopal Press and News
Committee Speaks on Threats to Peace
Episcopal News Service. September 3, 1981 [81232]
DRESDEN, East Germany -- The 140-member governing Central Committee of the World Council of Churches has issued a statement on threats to peace, including the neutron bomb and continuing "violent conflicts" in several regions of the world.
Meeting here in the German Democratic Republic Aug. 16-26, the Committee called the neutron bomb "the most recent and obvious example" of "new dehumanizing weapons" and a "tremendous threat because it makes the use of nuclear weapons more likely."
The United States government had announced in early August that it would produce and stockpile the bomb, which would kill persons in its range but do considerably less property damage than other kinds of nuclear blasts.
The Central Committee urged a ban on this bomb and any similar weapons.
The statement also noted continuing "violent conflicts" in regions cited in previous Committee statements but not repeated in this one. In 1980 at its meeting in Geneva the Committee referred to the Middle East, southern Africa, and the region in and around Afghanistan, among other areas.
In other action, the Committee accepted "with deep regret" the resignation of the Salvation Army from membership in the World Council. The Army's membership had been suspended at their own request since 1978 following the announcement of a grant to the Patriotic Front in Zimbabwe from the Special Fund of the World Council's Program to Combat Racism.
The Committee granted the Army "fraternal status," which had been requested. The Salvation Army had pledged its continuing support for the Council's major programs in evangelism, inter-church aid and medical work.
The Committee, however, rejected the implication in the Army's letter of resignation that the World Council is motivated by politics rather than the Gospel.
Church leaders from the United States, Canada and England who are members of the World Council Central Committee issued a joint statement acknowledging their countries' responsibility for the firebombing of Dresden during World War II. They also pledged to do everything they could to present a new world-wide holocaust in the nuclear age. The Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and a member of the Central Committee, was one of the signers of the statement.
The Council's general secretary, Dr. Philip Potter, said to the Committee that "the fundamental human right of people to know" should be a major factor in church activity. He said people have a right to "be fully informed about their condition, to be able to discern the sources of their disease both within them as persons and societies and without them in other nations."
The Committee asked its executive committee to designate, following consultation with member churches, 10 issues considered "ripe for action" at the mid-1983 Assembly in Vancouver. The Assembly theme is "Jesus Christ -- the Life of the World," and the four approved major concerns are life, a gift of God; life in the midst of death; life in its fullness; and life in unity. Some 930 delegates from the Council's more than 300 member bodies in more than 100 countries are expected to gather for the meeting.