The newly-elected moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee, Rev. Dr Walter Altmann speaks in this interview about the beauty of the ecumenical vision and the enthusiasm it engenders, the scandal of divisions between Christians, and his dream of churches which allow themselves to be renewed so as to experience the unity of the Christian family.
At the 9th Assembly, you were elected as the moderator of the WCC central committee, which is the highest elected position in the WCC. Many member churches would like to know more about you. Please tell us something about your personal and church background and life.I was born in Porto Alegre in 1944. My parents were teachers in a Lutheran school and were very active in the life of the church. I had my first ecumenical experiences in the student ecumenical movement. As a theological student, I was a youth delegate to the meeting of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism in Mexico City in 1963. As a young pastor, at the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil, I travelled semi-secretly to Prague in 1968 to take part as a delegate in the Christian Peace Conference.
Theologically, I draw my inspiration from Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Luther. I studied for my doctorate in Hamburg, Germany (1969-72). I worked as a parish minister in the south of Brazil until 1974, and I was then appointed professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran School of Theology in São Leopoldo. A particular interest of mine has been to seek convergences between the theology of the Reformation and liberation theology. In the 1970s, and up to 1982, I was a member of the Catholic-Lutheran Bilateral Commission in Brazil. From 1995 to 2001 I was president of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI). In 2002 I was elected pastor-president of the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB).
I am married and have four daughters and two grandchildren.
You are the head of one of the largest Protestant churches in Latin America, a context of complex and dynamic socio-economic and ecumenical dimensions. How would you assess the state of the churches and the ecumenical movement in the region at this time?
On the one hand, Latin America has a rich ecumenical history. The historic Protestant churches have cooperated among themselves in the field of mission since the mission conference in Panama in 1916, although their approach to mission was often conceived as opposition to the Catholic Church. On the other hand, theological dialogue with the Catholic Church, for example on the part of Lutherans in Brazil, was initiated in 1957, thus predating the Second Vatican Council. In the 1970s, at the time of the military dictatorships in Latin America, there was widespread close ecumenical cooperation in the field of human rights, with a significant contribution from the World Council of Churches.Today the religious scene in Latin America is characterized by growing religious pluralism, in which prominent features are the growth of Pentecostal churches (who concentrate on the gifts of the Spirit), and Neo-Pentecostal churches (who concentrate on concepts such as spiritual warfare against demons and promises of prosperity for believers). We are also seeing an increasing number of individuals who describe themselves as "non-religious". Many of the new churches reject ecumenism and campaign against it, particularly if the Catholic Church is involved. The greatest challenge is to find ways to overcome these divisions and hostility.
