What is the Difference Between the World Council of Churches and the International Council of Christian Churches?

These two church councils, operating on the world level, were both organized in Kinsterdarn, The Netherlands, August, 1948. Their purpose, testimony, and goals-are entirely different.

The WCC received into its membership all manner of church groups, including modernists, evangelicals, unitarian, Greek Orthodox, and Communist-controlled.

The ICCC has accepted into its membership only such bodies as maintain the purity and integrity of their confessions and which are thoroughly evangelical and Protestant.

The WCC calls itself the ecumenical movement and is seeking to build an ecumenical church which ultimately will embrace all churches, including the Roman Catholic Church.

The ICCC presents what is called the 20th Century Reformation movement and is seeking to defend the historic Christian faith from all the attacks being made upon it by the modernists, the, neo-orthodox, the new evangelicals, and those who join in fellowship with that which the Word of God forbids.

The WCC has a brief creedal statement and after thirteen years is seeking still to modify it. The Council requires no unanimity in the acceptance of any one Christian doctrine and does not debar those of unitarian belief from its fellowship.

The ICCC has summarized the historic doctrines of the faith, including inerrancy of the Scriptures, the Trinity, the virgin birth, the deity, sinless life, atoning death, and personal, visible second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It requires unanimity of agreement and subscription to its doctrinal platform.

The WCC has on its executive and central committees clergymen with Communist affiliations from Communist countries and holding positions in Communist governments, whose churches are -dominated by the secret police. The Council includes such churches in its membership.

The ICCC sees Communism in its diabolical, world-wide conspiracy and has sought to expose the use which it is making of religion within the World Council of Churches. No church affiliated with the World Council of Churches can be affiliated with the MCC.

The WCC is promoting the cause of church union and, under a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Lord’s prayer in John 17, is seeking to build an organic, visible, one-world church. The ICCC believes that the unity which God desires His people to manifest is spiritual, and that, with linguistic, cultural, and other created and providential differences, the church must await its final triumph and consummation before it will be united in Glory with its Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The WCC conceives of “the kingdom of God” as a visible, social order which actively promotes world socialism. The ICCC believes “the kingdom of God” to be a spiritual order entered only by the miracle of the new birth.

The WCC maintains a Commission’ of the Churches on International Affairs which places political pressure upon governments and international bodies and maintains a lobby at the United Nations.

The ICCC does not regard its work to be in any sense political, and maintains no such lobbies, but feels that it is its duty to make proper approaches to public bodies in respect to such moral issues as from time to time may arise.

The WCC is gathering to itself more and more the functions of a denomination and carrying out activities and work which properly belong to the churches.

The ICCC operates simply as an agency and arm of the churches in a very limited field of activity and makes no effort of any kind to assume or to interfere with the activities of the constituent denominations which compose it. It is a council of fellowship and expresses unity and co-operation among churches of like precious faith.

The WCC consists of 170 denominations and claims to speak for the non-Roman churches.

The ICCC consists of 64 Protestant denominations and has regional and national councils of churches affiliated with it in over 60 countries. It is the only militant church organization challenging the ecumenical movement and exposing the -havoc wrought by modernism, Communism, and the growing power of Roman Catholicism.

The WCC will hold its Third General Assembly in New Delhi, India, November 25 to December 4, 1961.

The ICCC will hold its Fifth Plenary Congress in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 14 to 20, 1962.

Prepared and distributed by
20TH CENTURY REFORMATION HOUR
Rev. Carl McIntire, D.D., Director
COLLINGSWOOD, NEW JERSEY