A Lutheran from Norway will head the World Council of Churches (WCC) in the future. The 48-year-old Olav Fykse Tveit succeeds the Kenyan Sam Kobia (62) in the highest office that the worldwide ecumenical community has to offer. Tveit defeated Park Seong Won, born in 1948, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Korea, at the Central Committee meeting in Geneva on Thursday. He is a man of balance.
The new general secretary of the World Council of Churches, which represents some 560 million Christians worldwide, is expected to take office in early 2010. The term of office is usually five years."Tveit has exactly the qualifications that the World Council of Churches needs now," judges Rev. Stephanie Dietrich of the Church of Norway. The German-born theologian is deputy president of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe. She has lived and worked in the northern European kingdom for more than 20 years.Tveit, the WCC general secretary-designate, is not only a friendly and even-tempered person – "I don't know anyone who is at odds with him" – but also an experienced church diplomat and a proven theologian through a doctorate on the subject of faith and church abuse. He can state his position clearly without being polarizing, he says. Dietrich: "I think Tveit's leadership experience can clearly help the World Council of Churches function well."Especially in terms of efficiency and performance, the WCC has had a bad reputation in the past. The organization, which was founded some 60 years ago, is complained to be too slow and too cumbersome. In the past, there have been repeated attempts at reform. Nevertheless, experts warn urgently against a further loss of importance of the Federation, which had its most influential period in the 1970s and 1980s with important impulses for the environmental and peace movement as well as the fight against racism, especially in South Africa. Tveit, a married father of three, is expected to restore the reputation of what remains the most important organization in non-Catholic Christianity. The dynamic-looking Scandinavian with the boyish face is well qualified to do so. Since 2002, he has been general secretary of the Council on Ecumenical and International Relations of the Lutheran Church of Norway. Most recently, he worked for reconciliation and peace in the Middle East.Despite his relatively young age, the Lutheran has a wide range of ecumenical experience and has been a member of World Council of Churches delegations on several occasions. After the German theology professor Konrad Raiser, who was WCC general secretary from 1993 to 2003, another European has taken the top post of the association of some 350 churches from more than 110 countries.Tveit brings a special work culture from his church. "There are flatter hierarchies and more participation here, unlike in many other central and southern European countries," notes Stephanie Dietrich. Although almost 90 percent of Norwegians belong to the Lutheran Church, which was recently a state church with the king as its head, there is great sensitivity to dialogue with minority churches and also other religions such as Islam, Dietrich emphasizes.Dietrich describes Tveit, who has held many positions in his church career from parish priest to military pastor, as "well Lutheran," that is, conservative and at the same time open to the world. With this background, he could also mediate in the World Council of Churches, in which orthodox and liberal Protestant churches are often irreconcilably opposed to each other on theological and ethical ies – especially in sexual ethics.Tveit sees dialogue with Islam as a future topic for the WCC. The Council "must not leave the churches in Muslim-majority countries alone in their coexistence with Muslims," he told the weekly newspaper Rheinischer Merkur. For churches in the Middle East, for example, it is important to have the support of the worldwide churches in dealing with Muslims. "But we must not increase tensions through ill-considered statements."