Disciples and Pilgrims, Arusha, and Karlsruhe

Abstract

A striking feature of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), held at Karlsruhe in Germany in 2022, was its lack of attention to the “Arusha Call to Discipleship” issued by the WCC World Mission Conference held in Tanzania four years earlier. Further ecumenical amnesia was evident in the Assembly's neglect of the centenary of the formation of the International Missionary Council (IMC) in 1921. It is therefore timely to recall the purpose of the integration of the IMC and the WCC in 1961. This was driven, above all, by the theological imperative that mission and unity can never be separated from one another in the ecumenical movement. On the contrary, these two essential evangelical impulses must continuously inform and energize one another. It was in expectation of such synergy that the integration of the IMC and WCC was enacted. Today, a new opportunity to fulfil this ecumenical hope presents itself. Currently, the “unity strand” in the WCC has a preference for the language of pilgrimage when it comes to expressing the nature of the ecumenical journey, while the “mission strand” has opted for the language of discipleship. The opportunity missed at Karlsruhe was to draw the two into conversation with one another. Enabling the two motifs of disciple and pilgrim to inform and enrich one another could prove to be a vital source of renewal for the ecumenical movement in the next phase of its journey.