1925–1991

The founding of the World Council of Churches and its assemblies

The "Life and Work" movement (Archbishop Nathan Söderblom, Stockholm 1925) and "Faith and Order" (Bishop Charles Brent, Lausanne 1927) agreed at Utrecht in 1938 to merge into a single World Council of Churches. The war delayed its founding by a decade.

The WCC's first assembly opened on 22 August 1948 in Amsterdam. It brought together 351 delegates from 147 churches in 44 countries. They rejected both communism and liberal capitalism. Many of the movement's leaders were deeply influenced by Karl Barth's theology.

Subsequent assemblies were held at Evanston (1954), New Delhi (1961), Uppsala (1968), Nairobi (1975), and Vancouver (1983). At New Delhi the Orthodox churches joined and the International Missionary Council merged in. The Roman Catholic Church has sent observers since 1961 but has not joined.

Twentieth-century ecumenical dialogue made it impossible to write the history of theology along confessional lines alone.