Paul Abrecht

Nationality

U.S.A.

Date of Birth

1917

Date of Death

2005

Political
Preference

Paul Abrecht studied theology at Berkeley Baptist Divinity School and Christian ethics under Reinhold Niebuhr and John C. Bennett at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He was still a young and unknown American Baptist pastor when he joined the WCC staff in August 1949 as secretary of the ‘Christian Action in Society’ programme. Shortly after his move to Geneva, he accepted an appointment as Secretary of the newly-established Ecumenical Commission for European Cooperation (ECEC) in 1950, which he would continue to do until its dissolvement in 1974. In that capacity, Abrecht acted as a liaison between Protestant politicians and churchpeople in their efforts to contribute to European integration.

Initially, Abrecht also coordinated the development of the concept of the responsible society, as it was developed by J.H. Oldham and Section III of the 1948 Amsterdam Assembly. After the second WCC Assembly in Evanston of 1954, however, he became increasingly critical of the concept, deeming it too focused on the developed world. Having meanwhile been promoted to director of the WCC’s Department on Church and Society, Abrecht then replaced the focus of this Department to the theme ‘The Church in Areas of Rapid Social Change’, in order to better accommodate the needs of churches from post-colonial countries and the Third World.