VIOLENCE,NONVIOLENCE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE

In response to the Uppsala Assembly's Martin Luther King resolution (1968), and the controversy provoked by the World Council of Churches' humanitarian aid to groups combatting racism (1970→), the WCC Central Committee (Addis Ababa, 1971) asked its sub-unit on Church and Society to conduct a two-year study on the problems and potentialities of violence and nonviolence in the struggle for social justice. Reporting back to the Central Committee (Geneva, 22–29 August 1973), Church and Society noted that ‘Our task was not to initiate a discussion, for the issues had already registered themselves in the headlines of the press, the agendas of church synods and the consciences of many troubled individuals… Our distinctive role was that of trying to set the issue in a worldwide ecumenical context - which has meant, in particular, heIping white afluent Christians take seriously the perspectives of other parts of the Church.’ The main part of the report took the form of a statement (see below) drawing on work done during the previous two years. It was prepared, Church and Society explained, as ‘an attempt to clarify (not to terminate) the churches' debate. We underline the need for further work on the disagreements and unclarities which remain, and for the kind of genuinely ecumenical perspective on the whole problem without which none of our churches can escape from their various parochialisms.’