The 1966 World Conference on Church and Society

Abstract

Taking as its starting point the 1966 World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva, which marked the beginnings of a fundamental change in the understanding of ecumenical social ethics within the World Council of Churches (WCC), this article discusses the role of the conference in this shift in perspective from the idea of the “responsible society” to the emergence of a form of postcolonial ecumenism. It traces the emergence of the responsible society as a guiding principle for the WCC and, in particular, the role in this of the US social ethicist Paul Abrecht, as well as how a focus on rapid social change helped strengthen and consolidate churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These churches would then articulate the beginnings of a postcolonial understanding of ecumenical social ethics at the Geneva conference, which would in turn lead to the development of new programmes on social justice after the WCC's 4th Assembly in Uppsala in 1968. The article concludes by discussing the tension between the two guiding principles in the decade that followed the Uppsala assembly.