Tribute to Marlin VanElderen 1946-2000

Abstract

KONRAD RAISER [*] The unexpected and untimely death of Marlin VanElderen has left his colleagues in the World Council of Churches deeply shocked and has provoked a flood of messages of sympathy from all parts of the worldwide ecumenical community. None of those who worked with Marlin or knew him only as an excellent editor and lucid writer has remained untouched by the news of his passing away in the early hours of Pentecost Monday after a massive heart attack. For nearly twenty years, Marlin VanElderen had been on the staff of the WCC. After an initial one-year period, from September 1980-August 1981, when he served as an interim editor for WCC Publications, he was officially appointed in October 1982 as magazine editor for the WCC monthly magazine One World. He remained in this, position until October 1993 when he was made chief editor for all publications of the WCC, a responsibility which he held until his death. In addition, during the months leading up to the Harare assembly, he served as acting director of the Communication Department until the arrival of the new director in January 1999. However, this brief record of his official functions within the WCC cannot do justice to his unique contribution to the life and work of the Council. When he first came to the WCC, he was already an accomplished editor with Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company in Grand Rapids (USA), the city where he grew up. Raised in the spirit of the Christian Reformed Church, he was educated at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, where he already began to manifest his gifts for writing and editing. He acquired his professional skills with Win. B. Eerdmans who, since the 1970s, had been a frequent co-publisher with the WCC. Thus Marlin VanElderen came into touch with WCC publications even before joining the staff. For more than half of the twenty years' existence of the WCC magazine One World, Marlin VanElderen served as its editor. Through his choice of title stories, the continuous discovery of new and creative contributors, the collection of short clippings and vignettes from around the world, and particularly through his thought-provoking and incisive editorials, he succeeded in making One World a widely appreciated source of up-to-date information and reflection about the ecumenical movement. It pained him more than anybody else when, in 1995, One World went out of existence, an early casualty of the financial problems faced by the WCC. However, even while the regular editing of One World was his main responsibility until 1993, his unique gifts as a writer and editor had become a very valuable asset for the WCC. Thus, in 1990, looking forward to the Canberra assembly (1991), he wrote a special book for the Risk series, Introducing the World Council of Churches, which, even ten years later, has remained a reliable and thoughtful presentation of the history, purpose and activities of the WCC in the context of the wider ecumenical movement. During the same period, together with T.K. Thomas, he formed the team which coordinated and completed the editing of the first Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, which since then has become an indispensable source of information and stimulation for ecumenical research and discussion. It was natural therefore that after the retirement of T.K. Thomas, Marlin VanElderen should be made chief editor of WCC books and managing editor of The Ecumenical Review. Two major projects stand out during these last seven years, and his premature death has turned them into a legacy of Marlin VanElderen to the WCC and the ecumenical movement as a whole. The first of these is the preparation of a third volume of The History of the Ecumenical Movement. A first effort to carry forward the historical account beyond 1968 had to be abandoned in 1984. The positive echo encountered by the Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement served as encouragement for a second attempt for which Marlin VanElderen took the overall responsibility together with a group of editors, including John Briggs, Mercy Oduyoye and Georges Tsetsis. …