Praying for Justice

The World Council of Churches and the Program to Combat Racism

Bibliographic Data

ID12748340
AuthorsKate Burlingham (California State University, Fullerton, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume21
Issue1
Pages66-96
Publication date2019-04-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Cold War Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1520-3972 • E-ISSN: 1531-3298
PublisherThe MIT Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1162/jcws_a_00856
OpenAlexW2939220700
LanguageEN
References cited11

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, individuals around the world, particularly those in newly decolonized African countries, called on churches, both Protestant and Catholic, to rethink their mission and the role of Christianity in the world. This article explores these years and how they played out in Angola. A main forum for global discussion was the World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical society founded alongside the United Nations after World War II. In 1968 the WCC devised a Program to Combat Racism (PCR), with a particular focus on southern Africa. The PCR's approach to combating racism proved controversial. The WCC began supporting anti-colonial organizations against white minority regimes, even though many of these organizations relied on violence. Far from disavowing violent groups, the PCR's architects explicitly argued that, at times, violent action was justified. Much of the PCR funding went to Angolan revolutionary groups and to individuals who had been educated in U.S. and Canadian foreign missions. The article situates global conversations within local debates between missionaries and Angolans about the role of the missions in the colonial project and the future of the church in Africa

Christianity · Colonialism · Criminology · Economic Justice · Political science · Protestantism · Racism · Sociology · White (mutation · World War II · Gender Studies · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Law · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious studies · Religious Studies

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