The Gospel and the Ecumenical Movement

The first conference on Life and Work, held in Stockholm in 1925, appealed to Christians to repent the divisions among them and to make the gospel the decisive power in all areas of life. This conference - the Nicea of ethics, as it came to be called-was not summoned to discuss the theological or dogmatic questions which divide the churches; it was called to address the churches\u27 task of working together in the public life. The invitation declared the world situation to be so serious that Christians could not afford to await the reunion of churches before setting hearts and hands.. to the common effort of letting the will of God be done on earth as in heaven. Thus a connection between the gospel and the ecumenical movement was explicitly drawn near the start of the 20-century ecumenical movement, since the World Council of Churches, formally established in Amsterdam in 1948, grew out of these conferences on Life and Work (1925, 1937) and those on Faith and Order (1927, 1937). For the conferences on Life and Work the gospel meant fundamentally the power of God\u27s love to transform all the areas of life. More specifically, it had to do. with rebuilding the world that had been ravaged by the Fine World War