“Has the ecumenical movement become more divisive and less effective?” asks CCA General Secretary at ACELC

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

No preference updated.

02 May 2023

Dr Mathews George Chunakara, the CCA General Secretary, delivers the ACELC Thematic Address on ‘The Changing Ecclesial and Ecumenical Landscape in Asia: Our Common Witness and Ecumenical Accompaniment’

Jakarta, Indonesia: Speaking to an audience consisting of international and national Indonesian church and ecumenical leaders on ‘The Changing Ecclesial and Ecumenical Landscape in Asia: Our Common Witness and Ecumenical Accompaniment’, the CCA General Secretary Dr Mathews George Chunakara raised the question, “Has the ecumenical movement become more divisive and less effective?”

More than one hundred heads of churches—primates, bishops, presidents, general secretaries, and moderators—as well as general secretaries of national councils of churches in Asia, are attending the high-level summit, the Asian Church and Ecumenical Leaders’ Conference (ACELC).

Delivering the first thematic address at the ACELC being held at the Millennium Hotel in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, the CCA General Secretary situated the thematic address in the context of Christianity in Asia and the several challenges faced by the Asian ecumenical movement, such as increasing denominationalism, resistance to the call to wider fellowship, a tendency to revive and promote specific ecclesial or confessional groupings and identities, a multiplicity of ecumenical organisations and structures, a lack of vision and commitment on part of Asian leaders to promote ecumenism, and a lack of interest in the ecumenical formation of the younger generation.

The issue was raised in the context of the replication or duplication of efforts from a myriad of ecumenical organisations that address the same concerns within the same constituencies without any coordination or sharing of information, which detracts from the overall intended outcomes and negatively affects the coherence of the ecumenical movement. Such a trend was causing what the CCA General Secretary termed ‘archipelago ecumenism’—where such bodies or ecumenical coalitions that parachuted from outside Asia are responsible for disunity rather than being committed to strengthening or promoting conciliar unity.

Another key point raised was the rise in unnamed churches and para-churches or freelance aggressive missionary evangelism that was causing further fragmentation of the Asian ecumenical movement and giving rise to ‘missionary battlefields’ with ‘aggressive evangelisation tactics’ promoted in countries such as Cambodia, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia.

The CCA General Secretary hearkened to former times when the Asian churches provided stalwart leadership and enriching contributions to the global ecumenical movement. He called upon Asian churches to pool resources together and engage with sister churches at local and national levels, rather than more enthusiastically relating only with former partners in the mission fields.

“The specific responsibility and role of the Asian churches and the ecumenical movement in Asia, as a whole, is to search for the expression of the Asian churches’ common faith through their engagement in a pluralistic Asia and to work for visible unity at national and regional levels despite doctrinal differences or confessional barriers. A new way of working together by all ecumenical actors and denominational and confessional bodies engaged in their mission in Asia has to be found,” said the CCA General Secretary.

“The need for revitalising the ecumenical movement in Asia and regaining the ecumenical vision of Asian churches should be a priority of all those who are concerned with the common witness and future of the ecumenical movement in Asia. It is high time that the Asian churches began thinking about how best they can contribute to revitalising the Asian ecumenical movement so as to reposition its role and respond to the challenges of contemporary Asian realities,” concluded Dr Mathews George Chunakara.

Comments and insights were shared by Rev. Jacky Manuputty, the General Secretary of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia, Bishop Dushantha Rodrigo of the Church of Ceylon, and Rev. David Das, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in Bangladesh.

The ACELC is being held from 1 to 5 May 2023.

More photos can be found here.