WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES CELEBRATES 60TH ANNIVERSARY

(Friday Church News Notes, February 29, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org,
866-295-4143)

At a meeting on February 18 at St. Pierre Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Council of Churches (WCC) celebrated its 60th anniversary. The Council is an international ecumenical union of roughly 340 denominations in 120 countries
representing more than 500 million professing Christians. It was formed in 1948 in Amsterdam, Holland. The goal of the World Council is to "move forward towards the manifestation of the one holy church"

(The Genesis and Formation of the World Council of Churches, p. 66). This supposed "one holy church" is a figment of a heretical imagination. The Bible warns repeatedly that "Christendom" will become increasingly apostate as Christ's return draws near. "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being
deceived" (2 Tim. 3:13). They will have "a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:5), and will "turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:4).

True Bible churches are commanded to remain separate from this error. "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them" (Romans 16:17). The World Council of Churches is a hotbed of theological heresy.

In 2006 the WCC moderator, Walter Altmann, said that ecumenism "extends far beyond the frontiers of the churches and embraces the whole of humankind and the whole created universe" ("Greater Communion Not Minimalist Agenda," Christian Post, Aug. 28, 2006). The Bible says the created universe is under the curse of God because of sin and will only be set right at the return of Jesus Christ and the establishment of His kingdom. There will be no peace or true justice until Christ returns.

As for the "whole of humankind," it is under the condemnation of sin and every individual that dies without Jesus Christ will spend eternity in the lake of
fire. Thus, the urgent task of the churches of Jesus Christ is to rescue men from the judgment to come by preaching the Gospel. The World Council of Churches has replaced Christ's Great Commission with a humanistic program of socio-political work; the objective of saving souls has been replaced with that of saving the creation. Not surprisingly, the WCC is radically anti-fundamentalist.

In 2003 the moderator of the WCC's Central Committee meeting called fundamentalism "the greatest enemy of religion and the most dangerous force of our times" (Presbyterian Church USA News, Aug. 26, 2003). As the push for unity intensifies, more pressure and persecution will come to nonconformist biblical fundamentalists.

For more about the World Council of Churches see http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/wcc.html.