Twenty questions was a parlor game familiar to our fathers and grandfathers. Recently it has again come into prominence as a quiz technique on radio and television.

Our Twenty Questions are a little different. They are questions most frequently asked by Episcopalians who want to know more about ways in which the Church works with other Christian bodies, at home and abroad, in the interest of world mission and unity. No well-informed Churchman believes that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the whole Christian Church; rather it is the part of that whole through which we live our Christian life. It is a part of the worldwide Anglican Communion; and the Anglican Communion is a part of the Holy Catholic Church to which we pledge allegiance every time we say the Creed, the Church founded by Christ Himself, built on the cornerstone of the Apostles, and continued through the Communion of Saints in all ages, down to the present and extending into the future. It is not only our own Church, but historic Christendom as a whole, with which the ecumenical movement is concerned.

Here are the answers to some important questions about the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the principal ecumenical agencies.

Question 1. What do we mean by ecumenical?

The word ecumenical is really not a difficult one, for moderns who have added to their vocabulary such words as electronic, nuclear, and fissionable. Its simplest dictionary definition is "general; worldwide in extent, influence, etc." The ecumenical councils of the Church in its early centuries were able to formulate doctrines of the Christian faith because they represented the whole Church. In its modern divided condition, such an ecumenical body representing the whole Christian Church is impossible; but such organizations as the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council use the term ecumenical because their outreach is universal. No lesser word, such as interdenominational, is big enough to comprehend their scope.

Ecumenical in its modern sense, may be denned as pertaining to the whole Christian fellowship, especially to those common aims and activities in which a large number of Christian communions join together in a mutually representative organization. No modern ecumenical body is so universally representative that it could formulate a creed, as did the Council of Nicea; but there are many areas in which an ecumenical body can express the common mind of separated Christian communions, in order to make a common Christian impact upon a largely pagan and materialistic world. That is the function of the ecumenical movement today.

Question 2. Why does the Episcopal Church take part in ecumenical activities?

Just as a modern nation cannot live in isolation from its neighbors, so the Episcopal Church cannot live in isolation from other Christian Churches. The same sense of world community that leads the United States to participate in the United Nations must lead our Church to participate in the World Council of Churches and other ecumenical agencies. But just as participation in the United Nations does not mean that the United States gives up its own identity and sovereignty, so participation in ecumenical bodies does not mean that the Episcopal Church, or any other member Church, gives up its own identity, or control over its own doctrine, discipline, and worship.

But the Church has an even more compelling reason for working closely with its Christian neighbors. Our Lord prayed that His followers might be one, even as He and His Father are one, in the unity of the Trinity. The Church is the Body of Christ, and we are its members. A divided Church is really an anomaly. Actually, the ecumenical movement is not primarily an attempt to bring separated Churches together by gluing them together at the edges, so to speak; rather it is a serious effort to plumb the depths of the underlying unity that must lie beneath the obvious evidences of our surface disunity.

Perhaps we can best describe that inner compulsion in the words of the Prayer Book collect for the Church:

O gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

Question 3. What part did our Church play in initiating ecumenical activities?

Charles W. ranson gives some highlights in the history of the ecumenical movement in his book, That the World May Know. From its very beginning the Episcopal Church has played an important part in this movement.

The Edinburgh Conference of 1910, from which the International Missionary Council dates its origin, though not actually organized by that name until 1921, was the first international conference in which the Churches themselves were represented by official delegates. The fact that this conference was not allowed to discuss basic questions of church doctrine led the Rt. Rev. Charles Henry Brent, a bishop of the Episcopal Church, to ask why Christians could not be trusted to consider in a Christian manner the things that they held most deeply. As a consequence, he introduced into the House of Bishops at the General Convention that year a resolution, sponsored in the House of Deputies by the Rev. William T. Manning, then rector of Trinity Church, New York, inviting Christians to join in a World Conference on Faith and Order. The first such conference was held at Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1927; a second at Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1937; and a third at Lund, Sweden, in 1952. All have been strongly supported by the Episcopal Church.

Bishop Brent and other American Churchmen also were active in the Life and Work Movement, which held world conferences at Stockholm, Sweden, in 1952, and at Oxford, England, in 1937. From these two movements derived the World Council of Churches, authorized in 1937 but not fully organized, because of World War II, until 1948, when the first Assembly was held at Amsterdam.

In all these, and other, meetings, conferences, and assemblies, the Episcopal Church has played a prominent part through its delegations which have included bishops, priests, lay men and women of the Church.

Question 4. What are some of the ecumenical agencies with which the Episcopal Church co-operates?

First and foremost, the World Council of Churches, which will hold its second Assembly at Evanston, Ill., in August, 1954. Episcopalians have been active in its study groups, in its central committee, and in its Faith and Order Commission. A full delegation of fourteen members, including bishops, priests, lay men and women, will represent the Church at Evanston, and other Churchmen will participate as accredited visitors, staff, and committee members.

Closely related is the International Missionary Council, in which the Church's Department of Overseas Missions is represented. Others are the World's Student Christian Federation, and, in this country, the National Council of Churches, with its many departments and divisions.

Question 5. What is the World Council of Churches, and how does it operate?

The World Council of Churches grew out of two movements, Life and Work, and Faith and Order. These two, at their world conferences in 1937, appointed a joint committee of fourteen, of which the Rt. Rev. George Craig Stewart, late Bishop of Chicago, was a member, which drew up the plan for a World Council of Churches. Before it could be fully organized, World War II began, but even in process of formation the World Council was able to set up such important international agencies, even across the lines of warring nations, as the chaplaincy service to prisoners of war and the relief service which became the Department of Inter church Aid and Service to Refugees.

The World Council was fully organized at its first Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948. Assemblies are supposed to be held every five years, with representation of member Churches in relation to their sizes and other considerations; but the second Assembly will meet one year late, in 1954, in Evanston, 111. This will be the first great world conference of an ecumenical nature to be held in the United States.

The World Council of Churches is more than a worldwide Protestant organization. It includes not only the Anglican Churches, with their combined Protestant-Catholic heritage and outlook, but Eastern Orthodox Churches and Old Catholic Churches, i.e., those that retain the Catholic faith and practices but reject the authority of the Pope. The only large Churches not represented are the Roman Catholic Church, which, however, has sent unofficial observers, and the Orthodox Churches of Russia and the satellite countries. But the door has always been held open for the Roman Catholics and the Russian Orthodox.

At present, the World Council numbers in its membership 158 member Churches, of approximately fifteen confessional families, in forty-three countries, including some behind the Iron Curtain. A conference of USA member Churches numbers twenty-nine, including the Episcopal Church.

Question 6. What does the World Council do in its Assemblies and between sessions?

The functions of the World Council are:
1. To carry on the work of the world movements for Faith and Order and for Life and Work
2. To facilitate common action by the Churches
3. To promote co-operation in study
4. To promote the growth of ecumenical consciousness in the members of all Churches
5. To establish relations with denominational federations of worldwide scope and with other ecumenical movements
6. To call world conferences on specific subjects as occasion may require, such conferences being empowered to publish their own findings
7. To support the Churches in their task of evangelism.

The World Council has a strong and growing Youth Department, which held in 1952 a conference at Travancore, India, in which more than 300 delegates from fifty-five countries participated. This department sponsors some thirty-three work camps all over the world. (See Forth, February, 1954, page 22.)

The Study Department conducts surveys in such fields as the Bible and the Church's Message to the World, Evangelization of Man in Modern Mass Society, and Christian Action in Society.

The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs helps to develop Christian public opinion on world problems, and to make it known to agencies of the United Nations and various governments.

Question 7. What is the Faith and Order Movement within the World Council?

Faith and order is the term applied to the activities of the World Council in the field of doctrinal studies and approaches to Christian unity. The World Council is not itself an agency for reunion of the Churches, but it attempts to provide an atmosphere, through studies and conferences, in which Churches may understand one another better, both as to agreements and differences. Increasingly, these problems are found to revolve about the question of the nature of the Church itself, and this will be further considered at the Evanston Assembly, on the basis of findings of the world conference held at Lund in 1952. The Episcopal Church from the outset has taken a special interest in this problem, and continues to do so. But no actual negotiations for reunion take place within the World Council; these are matters left to direct contacts between interested Churches acting through their own official bodies.

Question 8. What is the relationship of "the Church, the Churches, and the World Council of Churches"?

It is admittedly confusing to use one word, Church, to apply to:

The entire worldwide community of Christians
A particular Christian body, like the Episcopal Church
A parish, like St. Luke's or St. James' Church
A particular building set apart for public worship.

The World Council is not itself a Church, and certainly not a superchurch. It is a representative body, to which its member Churches delegate certain responsibilities, retaining for themselves full autonomy and self-government. The World Council made this quite clear in a statement adopted in Toronto in 1950, entitled The Church, the Churches, and the World Council of Churches.

Question 9. What part does the Episcopal Church play in the activities of the World Council of Churches?

A very large part, in every aspect of the World Council's work. For instance, in one year representatives of the Episcopal Church attended these meetings under the auspices of the World Council, or its departments: Central Committee, in Lucknow, India; Executive Committee, Celigny, Switzerland; Faith and Order Commission, Celigny, Switzerland; Preparatory Commission on Evangelism, Geneva, Switzerland; Study Department, Celigny, Switzerland; Executive Committee, US Conference, Washington, D. C; the United States Conference, Atlantic City, N. J.; Committee on Interpretation and Support, New York; Study Committee of the US Conference, Greenwich, Conn.; Press and Broadcasting Committee, New York.

Other representatives are engaged in preparation for the second Assembly.

Question 10. How is the World Council of Churches supported?

Each member church is expected to contribute according to its size and means. This is done partly through grants by the Church's central body, partly by parish memberships and contributions, and partly by individual gifts. The annual share of the Episcopal Church is $28,000, of which $10,000 is granted through the General Church Program, and the balance contributed by parishes and individuals.

Question 11. How does the ecumenical movement help the Churches with their relief programs?

The American churches carry out their relief programs chiefly through two ecumenical agencies:

The Central Department of Church World Service of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and the Department of International Church Aid and Assistance to Refugees of the World Council of Churches.

Church World Service is the agency through which the American Churches do certain things co-operatively which they could not do separately or which they could only do at greater expense and with much confusion. The two chief programs are the resettlement of displaced persons and refugees, and the operation of a vast program of material aid, food, clothing, medicines, and supplies.

Church World Service acted as the central agent of the Churches in all the complicated arrangements with Government about DPs, kept the central files, and planned their reception at the ports of entry. Eastern Orthodox Churches in the United States readily admit that they could not have done the job without the help of the other Churches. Their people constituted a large part of the 60,000 victims of war who have now established new homes in this country. Under the provisions of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 it is hoped that this co-operative program will continue. Church World Service is also the central agency through which the American Churches shipped more than twelve million pounds of clothing, food, and medicine in 1953 to Christian agencies in Germany, Austria, Greece, Italy, Trieste, France, Belgium, Turkey, Korea, India, Pakistan, Japan, and the Near East countries.

The program of the World Council's Department of Interchurch Aid and Assistance to Refugees is the worldwide agency through which American Churches join forces with the relief programs of the Churches in nearly all countries of the world. Thus the Churches in Great Britain, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, and New Zealand join America as contributing Churches in helping Christians in the receiving countries.

To the central office of the World Council in Geneva, Switzerland, come reports of the needs of the Churches throughout the world. These reports are co-ordinated and made known to the Churches in the giving countries. Then out from the giving countries go the money, supplies, and personnel to the Churches in need. The World Council program also includes a great program for displaced persons and refugees. They work with the refugee clergy in the camps and they start the refugees on their way to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and other countries of refuge.

In the ecumenical program represented by these two agencies, there is no duplication of services, no competition among the Churches, no multiplied overhead expense, and no neglected peoples.
Around the world is a network of communication and a complete program of relief. In some parts of the world the Churches and their people have survived and retained their hope because of the knowledge and evidence that they belonged to a larger Christian fellowship.

Through these two programs Episcopalians contributed more than $200,000 in 1953. The Episcopal Church itself is represented on the governing bodies of both agencies.

Question 12. What is the World's Student Christian Federation, and how is the Episcopal Church related to it?

The World's Student Christian Federation is a federation uniting more than forty national student Christian movements; it serves in fifty-six countries. Since 1939 the Episcopal Church, through its Division of College Work, has worked closely with this agency, particularly through its American affiliate, the United Student Council, which is also related to the Department of Campus Christian Life of the National Council of Churches.

Work on every campus represents interchurch cooperation. The Student Christian Federation is a practical way to carry out this desired end. Its purposes are "to lead students to accept the Christian faith in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to the Scriptures, and to live as true disciples of Jesus Christ; to promote Bible study and the deepening of the spiritual life of students; to inspire service in the extension of Christ's Kingdom; to increase international understanding; to serve students in all ways possible, in harmony with the Christian purpose."

Question 13. How does the Episcopal Church co-operate with the International Missionary Council?

The international missionary council was established in 1921 for the primary purpose of furthering co-operation on a world-wide scale in the carrying out of the Church's Mission. Its membership is composed of thirty-two non-Roman national bodies. Among these is the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches.

The Episcopal Church, as a constituent member of the National Council of Churches, participates in the world-wide work of the International Missionary Council through the Division of Foreign Missions. It contributes financially to the Division, and members of the staff of the National Council serve on the Division's area and functional committees. The Episcopal Church has been represented at the world-wide conferences of the International Missionary Council, of which there have been four: Jerusalem, 1928; Madras, 1938; Whitby, 1947; and Willingen, 1952.

Question 14. What is the National Council of Churches? If it is national, why do you include it among ecumenical agencies?

Let's take the second part first. Although national in its organization, the NCCC is ecumenical in its membership. Like the World Council, it includes Churches of. a wide variety of heritages, both Catholic and Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox. Just as America is the melting pot of the nations, so the Churches of America represent all the major traditions of the Old World. The American Episcopal, for example, represents Anglicanism in this country, as the United Lutheran represents Lutheranism, and the Greek or Russian Church in this country represents Orthodoxy.

The NCCC is a fellowship of thirty Christian bodies in the United States, representing more than thirty-five million members. It is a practical expression of the unity of spirit and purpose which Christian people have because of their common loyalty to Christ, even though they belong to different communions. The NCCC is not something apart from its member Churches, but the Churches themselves doing together those things that they can do better unitedly than any could do separately.

Question 15. What is the history of the National Council of Churches?

The National Council of Churches came into being in 1950, combining in one agency the work formerly carried on by twelve agencies. Thirty Churches created and hold membership in the NCCC. Its first president was the Rt. Rev. Henry Knox Sherrill, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The NCCC does its work through four main divisions, together with certain joint departments and central and general departments, commissions and agencies. The divisions are: Home Missions, Foreign Missions, Christian Education, and Christian Life and Work.

From the outset, Episcopalians have been active in all phases of the work of the NCCC. Activities in which they took a prominent part in one year are: Division of Foreign Missions, Division of Life and Work, Division of Home Missions, Division of Christian Education, Central Department of Church World Service, Broadcasting and Film Commission, General Department of United Church Women, Joint Department of Family Life, Joint Commission on Missionary Education, the General Board, National Lay Committee, Policy and Strategy Committee, Department of International Justice and Good Will, Department of Christian Social Welfare, Joint Department of Evangelism, General Department of United Church Men, National Study Conference on the Churches and World Order.

Question 16. What are some of the activities of the National Council of Churches?

Concrete illustrations of co-operative projects undertaken or sponsored by the National Council of Churches are:

Publishing the Revised Standard Version of the Bible

Directing community-wide Bible observances

Completing the resettlement of displaced persons in new homes and shipping much food and clothing through the Department of Church World Service

Holding preaching missions among youth in the Armed Forces

Presenting Christian messages on all radio and television networks

Providing a ministry-on-wheels to migrant workers from Florida and the Rio Grande to Canada

Teaching illiterates around the world

Conducting university Christian missions in tax-supported institutions

Guiding released-time weekday religious education and daily vacation Bible schools

Preparing and publishing Sunday school lesson outlines and missionary education textbooks

Collecting and publishing statistics of church membership and missionary and benevolent giving

Supplying chaplains on an interdenominational basis in hospitals and prisons

Uniting Christian people in devotional programs.

Question 17.  How is the National Council of Churches supported?

Thirty per cent of the total income of the NCCC is earned, resulting from publishing operations, sale of literature, rental of films, and other services rendered. The rest comes in contributions from three main sources: direct appropriations by the member Churches; gifts of parishes and individuals; grants from foundations, corporations, and other organizations.

The Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the National Council of Churches contributes to its operating budget through the General Church Program, contributions, and gifts from individuals. The operating budget of the National Council of Churches is in excess of seven million dollars annually.

Question 18. Are the member Churches of these ecumenical agencies committed to the statements made by the agencies and the projects undertaken by them?

The Episcopal Church is not committed to every statement or activity of these ecumenical agencies, or indeed of any of them. No one can speak for the Episcopal Church except the General Convention, or, while it is not in session, the House of Bishops or the National Council. No ecumenical agency can weaken the authority, for us, of our own Church's Constitution, Canons, and Book of Common Prayer. While the representatives of the Episcopal Church help to formulate the policies of these agencies, and its members help to carry out many of them, the Church is not committed to any specific statements or details of policy and practice, and reserve the full right not to participate in any activities that are not in accordance with our own faith and practice. This is provided in the respective constitutions, and applies to all member Churches.

Again, the analogy of the United Nations is a good one. While the United States is a full member and the chief supporter of the United Nations, it is by no means responsible for the speeches of the Iron Curtain delegates in the Assembly and Security Council, and it is not committed to specific activities unless and until our own representatives ratify and agree to them. The same is true of the relationship of the Episcopal Church to the WCC and NCCC and to other ecumenical agencies.

But it is also true that through these agencies the Episcopal Church, in co-operation with other Christian bodies, can make much more of a Christian impact upon society in this nation and in the world than it could possibly do all by itself, or even in co-operation with only the Churches with which it is in full communion.

Question 19. What part can my parish play in the ecumenical movement?

Co-operation at top levels is not of much value unless it is reflected at parish and community levels. What good does it do for the Episcopal Church to send delegates to talk with Protestant and Eastern Orthodox leaders at some remote spot in the world, if the local rector and congregation are not even on speaking terms with the local Protestant ministers and Orthodox priests and their flocks?

There are many ways in which local congregations can co-operate, both through the local council of churches and otherwise. Your parish might find out what some of these are in your own community.

Study groups on ecumenical subjects, either in the parish or jointly with neighboring congregations of other Churches, are helpful in laying the groundwork for practical co-operation.

An appropriation in the parish budget for the WCC and NCCC, sent through the Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations, 281 Fourth Ave., New York 10, N. Y., will help to meet the Episcopal Church's share of the expenses of these agencies.

Question 20. What can I do, as an individual?

You can take part in some of the parish activities, as suggested above. You can make a personal gift for some aspect of the ecumenical work, or join such an organization as the Friends of the World Council, 156 Fifth Ave., New York 10, N. Y.
You can familiarize yourself with the ecumenical aspects of your Church's work through reading about it in the church press, and discussing it with your neighbors of other communions.

You can volunteer for specific volunteer jobs of an ecumenical nature, such as helping in resettling refugee families in your community, or forwarding the work of Church World Service.

Above all, you can pray for the unity of Christ's Church, and for the carrying out of its divine commission to preach the Gospel to all the world.

In short, in the words of the Offices of Instruction, you can perform your bounden duty to follow Christ, to worship God every Sunday in his Church; and to work and pray and give for the spread of his kingdom—not only within your parish, but through the outreach of the entire Christian Church throughout the whole world.

LITANY FOR UNITY

Almighty God, who didst make with us the New Covenant and said, I will be their God and they shall be my people,
Forgive and heal our divisions.

Merciful God, who didst name thy Son Jesus, that He should save His people from their sins,
Forgive and heal our divisions.

Lord Jesus Christ, who didst promise that where two or three are gathered in thy name, thou art in their midst,
Unite us in Thy truth.

Son of the Living God, who didst assure thine apostle that the gates of hell shall not prevail against thy Church,
Unite us in Thy truth.

Good Shepherd, who wilt gather all thy chosen sheep in one fold, so there will be one flock,
Unite us in Thy truth.

Lamb of God, who didst give thyself for the Church and make it one Body in the Baptism of the one Spirit,
Unite us in Thy truth.

Bread of Life, who didst give the one Loaf and the one Cup for the nourishment of the Church which is thy Body,
Unite us in Thy truth.

Spirit of God, who dost bestow diversities of gifts upon thy people for the edification of all,
Maintain our unity in the bond of peace.

Holy Spirit, who dost help our weakness of prayer and make intercession for us,
Maintain our unity in the bond of peace.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God everlasting, forgive and heal our divisions, unite us in thy truth, maintain our unity in the bond of peace.
Amen.