Interview: Pastor Wipf - President of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe

The President of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches (SPC), Pastor Thomas Wipf of Bern, a member of the three-member Presidium of the CPCE (Community of Protestant Churches in Europe), gives his reflection on the work within the CPCE in this interview.

|PIC1|Pastor Wipf explains: “Europe needs our common witness and our common service. We would be unfaithful to our task as churches if we stopped at a merely voluntary declaration of church fellowship.”

Church President Wipf also tells of his expectations from the next General Assembly, which is taking place in Budapest from 12-18 September under the slogan ‘Strengthening Community – The Profile of Protestantism in Europe’.

Among his expectations he listed: “An internal and external strengthening of the CPCE”. An “institutional and legal strengthening of the CPCE is necessarily bound up” with the common witness and common service of the Protestant churches in Europe.

“We should give ourselves the possibility of bringing together the diversity of Protestant voices, working out common positions and then also making binding resolutions.”

The full interview with Pastor Wipf is shown below:


Herr Wipf, you have belonged to the CPCE Presidium since the last General Assembly and since then you have guided the fortunes of this alliance of Protestant churches. What are your personal conclusions about it?

Thomas Wipf: Today the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe is a reality for Protestantism. It provides stimuli for theological and ecclesiological reflection on a further growing together of the Protestant churches in the context of Europe and world-wide. Today this community is also an ecumenical reality. The CPCE is a partner in ecumenical conversations and thus can introduces its specifically Reformation understanding of church unity.

|TOP|Already prior to the last General Assembly in Belfast in 2001 further Protestant churches in Europe signed the Leuenberg Agreement, for example the Methodist churches of Europe and the Lutheran Churches of Denmark and Norway. The Evangelical Church in the Principality of Liechtenstein signed the Agreement this spring as our 105th and latest member. Another sign of the ongoing and not just Eurocentric significance of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship model of unity for is also evident from the fact than the Reformed and Lutheran churches in the Near East have signed the so-called Amman Declaration modelled on the Leuenberg Agreement.

Beyond doubt the Leuenberg Agreement also provides stimuli for the Protestant world alliances – the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Lutheran World Federation - and for their closer collaboration.

The CPCE is a solid Protestant network but not yet a fellowship which would be in a position to bring together the diversity of its voices and give them common expression. After the almost euphoric mood at the last General Assembly and the call for a prominent Protestant voice in Europe, a degree of restraint is also detectable. It is as if the churches did not complete trust their courage, I hope that the theological work on foundations which has been done since Belfast can give further nourishment to the will to grow together in a binding and visible way.

The last General Assembly called for the Protestant voice in Europe to be strengthened. Has this goal been achieved?

Thomas Wipf: The General Assembly in Belfast was a starting point. We will not go back on this starting point, The CPCE churches want to strengthen and reinforce their fellowship in witness and service. But Belfast also sparked off new reflection on the diversity which is a constituent part of Protestant witness. For the Protestant churches, unity cannot mean unification or uniformity. The important thing is to accept constructively the tension between unity and diversity.

We must also become aware that the history of the CPCE - which has always been the history of Leuenberg – is closely bound up with the growing together of Europe. Just as the political and economic situations of the member states of the European Union are different, so too are the situations of the CPCE member churches. It is part of Leuenberg that things grow slowly and that further development takes time.

|AD|After the last General Assembly the Leuenberg Church Fellowship renamed itself the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe. Have the expectations that it will be seen more clearly through the new name been fulfilled?

Thomas Wipf: The change in name involves more than the marketing aspect. I believe that the CPCE member churches were aware that primarily a substantive programme is bound up with the new name. Leuenberg must be more than a list of signatures under a document. Europe needs our common witness and our common service. We would be unfaithful to our task as churches if we stopped at a merely voluntary declaration of church fellowship.

The assent of the churches to the change of name also meant assent to the programme. The fellowship of churches must become binding, visible and audible – for the sake of the gospel and our fellow men and women. The slogan for the coming General Assembly in Budapest will be ‘Strengthening Community – The Profile of Protestantism in Europe’.

What do you expect of the General Assembly in Budapest?

Thomas Wipf: The doctrinal conversation groups have worked out documents for the General Assembly which make possible substantive discussions at a high level and provide the foundations for different options of further development of the CPCE.

I personally hope for an internal and external strengthening of the CPCE. Internal strengthening affects the awareness of being a committed member of a fellowship of churches and the will to give Protestant witness together. This would mean, for example, that we look for understanding wherever the basic insights of the Reformation are at stake. ‘CPCE compatibility’ should be a criterion in important theological or ecclesiological decisions of the member churches.

An institutional and legal strengthening of the CPCE is also necessarily bound up with the common witness and common service of the Protestant churches in Europe. We should give ourselves the possibility of bringing together the diversity of Protestant voices. I therefore hope that the General Assembly will resolve to work out a statute. In it the task and goal of the CPCE, organs, responsibilities and processes of reception must be described, along with the cultivation of relationships with other ecumenical alliances.

The significance of the General Assembly should be strengthened and the Executive Committee should be able to represent this alliance of churches to the outside world. A regular conference of church leaders would also be important for understanding between member churches.

What in your view are the future tasks of the CPCE?

Thomas Wipf: Theological work is a characteristic – perhaps the characteristic – of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship. This theological work must certainly be carried on. It remains indispensable for me. To take one example: the 1994 Leuenberg union document about the understanding of the church, ‘The Church of Jesus Christ’, makes a central statement: the one church of Jesus Christ, the object of faith, takes shape in concrete, historical churches. We emphasize the distinction between the foundation and the shape of the church. There is a danger that we will stop at the ‘distinction’. So perhaps in connection with Leuenberg we often speak only of ‘reconciled difference’. But the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe is not a fellowship of peaceful co-existence or even of an absence of claims on either side. The foundation and shape of the church may not be distinguished; they must also correspond. If we believe in ‘the one church in Jesus Christ’, then we should also reflect seriously on how we give this unity concrete shape.

The ecumenical model of Leuenberg is not ‘reconciled difference’ but ‘unity in reconciled difference’. We must seek forms of fellowship which give visible expression not only to our diversity but also to our unity.

For me a second, ecumenical task follows from this first future task. Our ecumenical partners, above all from the Roman Catholic side, often misunderstand the ‘Leuenberg Agreement’ as a legitimation of the status quo or as a minimal consensus, or even as an expression of ‘a post-modern mentality of an individualistic and pluralistic randomness’. So there is still much need for ecumenical explanation. The declaration of fellowship between churches of different confessions is not the goal of the ecumenical conversation but the beginning. The ecumenical dialogue between churches of different confessions can only begin to be binding where we recognize and acknowledge one another as churches. Therefore from a Protestant perspective Leuenberg is and remains an ecumenical milestone.

The third future task concerns the CPCE member churches. If the Leuenberg model of church unity is a really Protestant model, then it must be supported from ‘below’. Therefore the Leuenberg churches should examine possibilities of how the church fellowship which has been declared can also be given concrete shape at regional, national and even local levels.

The CPCE has intensified dialogue with Anglicans, Orthodox and Baptists in recent years. What is the aim of these conversations?

Thomas Wipf: The Leuenberg Church Fellowship of 'unity in reconciled difference’ presents a model of church unity which is also significant for a more comprehensive ecumene. It is therefore natural to seek theological conversation with other confessional families beyond the Lutheran-Reformed-United-Methodist sphere. The aim is to serve the whole ecumenical movement and to find a deeper fellowship and co-operation with other churches. The dialogue with the Anglican Communion taken up about ten years ago additionally also serves to consolidate internal fellowship, in so far as individual signatory churches are already in contact with the Anglicans thorough the Porvoo fellowship. The example of dialogue with the Baptists shows that this dialogue can lead to very welcome results. The document ‘The Beginning of Christian Life and the Nature of the Church’ takes an important step towards a common understanding of baptism and thus a deeper fellowship. How its results can be brought together and made fruitful in the further development of the Leuenberg Church Fellowship remains an important question for future dialogue.