AbstractsLaw & Legal Studies

This study examines the early stages of the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the foremost inter-church organization of Orthodox and Protestant churches, and reactions to it. Aside from the extensive archival and printed material of the WCC, the study is also based on both published and unpublished sources in Finland and Britain concerning the response to the PCR in these countries. To date, the PCR remains the most controversial and debated WCC initiative, with also the largest social and political impact. While the World Council had addressed social questions since its inception in 1948, it was in the late 1960s that they became the focus of special attention. Although the PCR was officially established in 1969, it originates from the Fourth WCC Assembly in Uppsala in 1968, which called for an action-orientated ecumenical programme to eliminate racism. Consequently, the period examined in this study commences with the Uppsala Assembly in August 1968 and concludes in August 1974, when the WCC Central Committee resolved to continue the PCR after the expiry of its initial five-year mandate. The 1960s was a decade marked by social and political upheaval and demands for radical social change. Calls for freedom, equality and justice were heard from recently decolonized countries and nations still struggling for independence. While social questions were no novelty on the agenda of the modern ecumenical movement, the spirit of the time promoted a new approach calling for action instead of discussion. The new demands also set a test for the WCC, which rose to the occasion by addressing one of the gravest social evils of the time, racism. This study clearly shows that the ecumenical attack against racism was the master plan of Eugene Carson Blake, the General Secretary of the WCC from 1966 to 1972 and a US civil rights activist. Although the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr only a few months before the Uppsala Assembly highlighted the problem of racism, it was Blake s determination that set the Assembly s focus on racism. Following the Uppsala Assembly, the new initiative on racism was prepared in a turbulent consultation in May 1969. The consultation drew attention to institutionalized forms of racism, and its conclusions formed the basis of the PCR, which the WCC Central Committee established in August 1969 with a decided focus on white racism. The PCR included a Special Fund to be distributed to organizations of racially oppressed groups. The WCC set an example to its constituency and transferred 200,000 US dollars from its reserves to the Fund, notwithstanding the financial difficulties it faced at the time. The establishment of the new ecumenical endeavour to fight racism went largely unnoticed until September 1970, when the WCC Executive Committee allocated the first grants from the Special Fund. As the Executive Committee wanted to give clear priority to Southern Africa, a significant proportion of the grants went to national liberation movements engaged in armed…