Original Research - Special Collection: Ignatius van Wyk Dedication

From Cottesloe (1961) to Trondheim (2016): The journey of the Dutch Reformed Church back into the ecumenical family of the World Council of Churches

Daniel Buda
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 74, No 4 | a5170 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v74i4.5170 | © 2018 Daniel Buda | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 26 June 2018 | Published: 24 October 2018

About the author(s)

Daniel Buda, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania; and, Department of Church History and Church Polity, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, South Africa; and, World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the journey of the Dutch Reformed Church (South Africa) back into the ecumenical fellowship of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The first part contains a brief historical review of the relationships between the WCC and the Dutch Reformed Church family, underlining the fact that the Dutch Reformed Church family in South Africa is a founding member of WCC and that it was never excluded from WCC fellowship; rather, this church itself resigned membership in the WCC after the Cottesloe Consultation (1961) at the pressure of the South African government of that time. The last part presents in detail the process of the readmission of the Dutch Reformed Church into the WCC fellowship (2012–2016) as well as the way this church was active in the WCC after readmission (2016–2018).

Keywords

Cottesloe; Dutch Reformed Church; membership in WCC; WCC Central Committee in Trondheim; Faith and Order Commission meeting in Johannesburg

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