In many sectors of our society today there is a growing awareness of the fact that we are rapidly approaching the end of a millennium. The year 2000 is now less than twenty years away. I am sure that for many of you - as for me - various organizations are beginning to look to that date - and considering how to celebrate or at least recognize it as a major turning point in the history of humanity. Doom-sayers are predicting that we won't make it - a nuclear holocaust will come before then. Futurists are beginning to predict what life will be like in the year 2000 - some with gloomy forecasts; others; like Alvin Toffler, with very hopeful ones.

      In our increasingly secular world, it would be very easy for the Year 2000 to become a milestone in national, international, and economic circles. We need to begin now to remember and to point out very clearly that it is a religious event; the year of Our Lord 2000, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. This has great significance for everyone, but very special importance for the Christians of the World. One of the major reasons for our gathering here today as Christians is to consider what can be done by the Churches of the world to be very sure that the religious significance of the Year 2000 is clearly seen and celebrated.

      That may sound like a very presumptuous statement for a small group, mostly American, to make. But I still make it confidently, because we have contacts with Christians in all parts of the world, and we hope to act only as catalysts to be sure that all of us are working together to make the most of this significant date. Two groups are represented here -the North American Academy of Ecumenists and an informal group known as "Event" which grew out of an ecumenical conference held at Seton Hall University in 1977. Between us we represent most of the major American churches and ecumenical agencies.

      Let us try, while we are here, to look at the world in which we live and the role and mission of the Churches in that world. There is little question but what the present world is fragmented and frightened. There is a constant reiteration - from government, business, and groups concerned with the environment, population, natural resources - of the probabilities of almost insoluble problems if we continue on present courses.

      A useful first step may be to try to assess the relative importance of some of the issues which come to the fore in discussions of the future. Which are the real issues, demanding thoughtful analysis and strategic planning? Which are only exaggerated fears born out of the human tendency to project the present into the future?

      An illustration of what I believe to be one of the exaggerations is the strong feeling, expressed by many people, that there are a great many more terrible things happening in the world today than ever before. They cite as examples natural disasters, conflicts between races or nations, the prevalence in many places of torture and terrible inhumanity, the number of places where there is severe malnutrition and starvation, the increase of terrorism. None of us would deny that these things exist. But what we need to remember is that they have always existed. the difference today is that we know about them - instantly and persistently.

      I am convinced that a great deal of the "gloom and doom" which affects most of us today is a direct result of constant battering by the media. Just a few generations ago, we heard of calamities and disasters weeks or months after they had happened, and if they were in remote places we never heard of them. Today, they are on our television screens, in living color as they occur. when you add to this the persistent theory of the news media that "news" is only "bad news", it is small wonder that we develop a strong feeling that our world is going rapidly down hill.

      When this all-pervasive knowledge is compounded by both crass and subtle propaganda - whether for political, economic or military purposes - it is easy to understand why the average citizen of almost any country is frightened and depressed.

      The world today is also filled with people - often in positions of leadership - who find change very threatening. as a psychologist, I know very well that a fundamental human need is the need for security. This did not pose a severe problem in times past, when change came slowly - over generations and centuries. We could slowly learn to adjust to very gradual change, and could maintain our inner security without great stress. The mark of our time is not only the amount of change which is taking place, but the rapidity of it. As Alvin Toffler pointed out in Future Shock, ours is the first generation in all of history in which parents could not foresee, and largely influence, the future lives of their children.

      Because change is so threatening to many people who found their security in familiar places, people, customs and behavior, it is no wonder that there are strong coalitions of those who oppose changes in family life, the role of women, education, economic arrangements and other areas of both personal and common life. They tend to romanticize the past and to try to recapture it through legislation. Unless and until ways can be found to help people face the facts of change and learn to live with them in reasonable comfort, our families, communities, nations will be in turmoil and conflict.

      Many of the really grave problems of the world today arise because of the inability of people - those in authority as well as the ordinary citizen - to see any hope or promise in changes which are taking place. To such people, the Year 2000 may well look more like doomsday than like a time to celebrate the beginning of a new millennium.

      There is only one source of hope in this situation - and that source is God. If, as religious people believe, God is the almighty creator and sustainer of the Universe, there is nothing to fear. It is my belief that God - who is love - wanted love in his creation. Being far wiser than we are, he knew that real love can never be coerced or forced. It must be a free gift. Therefore, if there were to be true love in the Universe, human beings would have to be free. As far as we know, we are the only thing in the entire creation which has this incredible gift of freedom. Everything else has built in instincts or factors which determine its actions and development. We humans alone, can choose what we will or will not do. We can even disobey our Creator or deny His existence. Having made us free, God then set about the task of winning our love and obedience. For the most part, we have been rebellious and disobedient. But we have sensed, throughout history, the fact that an occasional human being has appeared who actually did completely love and obey God. We label these people Saints, and we respect and revere them. Even the fact that many of them were total failures by human standards has not dimmed their power over our imaginations.

      Just the existence of Saints - the famous ones and a great many simple and unknown people who have loved and obeyed God, and been a blessing to those around them - can help us try to understand what God wants of us - His Church. At this moment in history - as we approach the Year 2000, God may well be calling His Church to radical new obedience - to a form of "sainthood".

      I don't really thing the God is in any way limited by our human time schemes. But I find it rather interesting that during the first 900 years after Christ the Christian Church grew and spread form the Middle East across Africa, into India, and across a large part of southern Europe. Transportation and communication were very poor, and the churches in different lands were probably extremely varied. But they were all part of the Church of Jesus Christ, and when necessary would travel long distances to meet in a Council.

      During most of the first millennium there was only one Church. It was in the last century of that millennium that the great rift occurred between the church in the East and the church in the West. Christendom entered the second millennium no longer a united body. And through 900 years of the second millennium the western church - after holding together for about 500 years - began to break into what now adds up to hundreds of different churches. The years of religious wars are a terrible indictment of our human relationships under one loving God. But, as we came to the last century of the second millennium, just before and after the year 1900, God began to pull us together. The great missionary activity of many churches spread the Gospel to parts of the world where it had never been heard.

      It was the missionaries - devoted to spreading the Good News - who first came to realize the problems created by our "unhappy divisions" and it was largely through their initiative that the modern ecumenical movement began. The report of the great International Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910 is an exciting document. People whose great grandfathers had killed one another in the religious wars of a few centuries earlier, bet and talked together. They discovered the amazing facts that they all believed in the same God, all believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, all read the same Bible, recited the same psalms and prayers. For many it was a glorious revelation.

      To be sure, even the Edinburgh Conference was a limited form of ecumenism. The Eastern Orthodox church sent observers. Roman Catholics who were there were strictly "incognito". The majority of delegates were from long established Protestant churches of Western Europe and North America. But the experience was so moving that the next twenty years saw the development of other ecumenical bodies - there were conferences on Christian Life and Work, Christian Education, Faith and Order, and other concerns of the Churches. By the late 1930's there began to be discussion of a permanent, on-going ecumenical body which would encompass all these concerns.

      While its beginnings were delayed by the Second World War, the World Council of Churches came into being in 1948. I will not give you my three-hour talk on the wide and effective work of the World Council. But I want to look at its relevance to our concern for the Year 2000. The WCC today encompasses in its membership a majority of the Protestant and Orthodox churches of the world. Of very great importance is the fact that the majority of the member churches now comes from what we call "The Third World", those areas which in 1900 were "mission areas". Today these former missions make up some of the most vital and fast-growing Christian bodies in the world.

      The one obvious omission from the World Council of Churches is the Roman Catholic Church. But the relationship between the two bodies has grown steadily since Vatican Council II. There are many joint programs in areas of missions, relief, refugee work, medical care. The Roman Catholic Church is a full member of the Faith and Order Commission and our basic theological study is done together. For our purposes here, the most significant body is what is known as the Joint Working Group of the WCC-Roman Catholic Church. This group meets regularly and is always looking for new areas of cooperation and joint activity.

      This has been a long side-track into the history of the modern ecumenical movement. But it seems critical to me as evidence - once again - of God's will. I cannot believe that all of this "just happened". Has God brought us together in these amazing ways - in this last century of the second millennium - in preparation for a glorious future which the Year 2000 will usher in? I see this as very possible - or probable - if we can be obedient.

      The Year 2000 is a Christian anniversary, and must be marked by some significant Christian events. Some have proposed the holding of a vast Universal Christian Council in that year - similar to the Great (though much smaller ) Councils of 1000 years ago. But we need to be realistic. The Councils of the early church were actually meetings of people all of whom recognized one another as part of a united body. They made decisions and enacted rules which were binding and which became a part of the life of the Church.

      Although we have made great strides toward Christian unity in this century, we need to be realistic about it. While we share belief in one God and in a common Lord, we have almost 1000 years of separate existence, misunderstandings and actual persecution and warfare in our history. Even with all our moves toward greater understanding and joint action, real Church unity is still a distant vision. An official Council of the still separated churches, which could take action binding on all, seems very improbable in less than twenty years - although we should always be prepared for God to step in and upset our timetables.

      But - short of that - there is still great cause for worldwide Christian celebration of the Year 2000. The Church exists now on all continents and among all races and peoples. Though still structurally separate, we have come in the past fifty years to know, trust and love one another. We have learned to rejoice in our variety and to respect hose who serve and worship in different ways. God has greatly blessed the ecumenical movement.

      Let us, therefore, urge upon the Protestants, Orthodox, and Roman Catholics, to begin plans for a World-wide Christian celebration of the Year of our Lord 2000. Such a celebration might mean one great world gathering, or simultaneous gatherings in various parts of the world. Its focus should be primarily on the new millennium into which we will be entering, and the devising of ways in which we may together discover and proclaim that "God is still in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself - and has entrusted to us the Ministry of reconciliation."