Category:Student revolt 1968

WSCF  World Student Christian Federation

The Student revolt of 1968 refers to a period of turmoil for the WSCF from 1968-1973. "The first signs signs surfaced in the Life and Mission of the Church (LMC) programme, which the General Committee (now known as the General Assembly) initiated in Tutzing, Germany in 1956." The LMC programme was aimed at working globally by linking it with the "renewed ecumenical thrust of mission"...

"Significant world-wide mission conferences at the end of the forties and early fifties had been pointing to a large-scale transition of the understanding of mission and to a new consensus within ecumenical mission theology."

"...the rise of Marxism, were placing the mission of the Church in a new social and political context."

The LMC was to make the WSCF a "mission arm of the Church" in the expanding world of higher education and transmit theology, resources and experience the world wide mission of the Church to a new generation of SCM leaders and members.

The LMC was a seven year programme, the pinnacle of which was the 1960 World Teaching Conference on the Life and Mission of the Church, held in Strasbourg, France, where 700 people represented SCMs from all continents. Notable speakers and "resource persons" were:  Karl Barth, Daniel Thambyrajah Niles, Willem A. Visser'T Hooft, Hans C. Hoekendijk. "The world conference was to be followed up in six regional LMC conferences before the 1964 General Committee held in Argentina."...In order to ensure the presence of the LMC consensus on mission within SCMs all over the world."

The March to Socialis vs New Left Diversity in a Christian Context

However, the participants rejected the "assumed consensus on mission, a revolt emerged.." The ramifications for the following years was aimed at major shifts of ideology where some members wanted a mix of New Left and Marxist ideas to be the contextual framework for theological and political functions of the World Student Christian Federation. Other members sought to make social justice advocacy the central emphasis while continuing to open up new frontiers in it's relation to churches, "testing new ways for contextual witness, without fixed ideological alliancies."

In the following years the two ideological blocs had taken shape and "New Man and New Society", the theme of the 1968 Turko WSC conference, was in line with both the revolutionary aspirations in Latin America movements and the new left in North America and Europe. The transformation of purpose of the WSCF was visibly complete in it's attempt to enter into serious dialogue between Christians and Marxists on the prospects of socialism.

In order to prevent a perceived anarcho-Marxist imperialist takeover, the latter New Left, traditional post Bonhofferian group made a defensive move, resorting to all-out regionalisation of the Federation, to avoid the ideological paternalism of Western European, North Amercian and Latin American radical activists. They desired a conference that manifested participatory democracy, in step with the New Left militants of France, Germany and the United States.

A chaotic beginning reached an uneasy truce where the original scheme was not rejected but new militant leadership was not accepted either. The major changes that did result were:

"Several "resource persons" who had been invited were not allowed by the new seminar leaders to present their papers...Some speakers from both sides were booed.  The resulting reports and recommendations for future work lacked substance, but were sloganish, full of radical New Left and Marxist jargon."

The true consensus was evident in the post-conference evaluations that concluded that the Turku 1968 (three years in the planning) was an unexpectedly unproductive, dissatifying and demoralising experience. "It became clear for the whole WSCF constituency and leadership that world gatherings had no future as a means of developing and testing new ideas for the Christian community.  Many even questioned the meaning of efforts to share experiences and visions across regional and cultural boundaries."

This rejection of the primary emphasis and methods of the world-wide ecumenican movement caused WSCF to part company with organisations it had help create. The radical wing of the WSCF lost interest in the WCC and other world and regional organisations of churches, and by 1973 had severed ties with church-based organisations.

"It is still difficult to assess the impact... on the basic aims and convictions (of the WSCF) beyond the desire to maintain the activist heritage of the era and the experience of a general fragmentation."

Retonen, Risto, "Reflections on the turbulant sixties in WSCF", Dialogue and Ecumenical Vision, Student World 2004/1, pp 26-33

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