WEA General Secretary Geoff Tunnicliffe "gave his full approval" to a "code of conduct" for preachers and evangelists developed by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Vatican, said Thomas Schirrmacher, the head of WEA’s International Institute for Religious Freedom, in remarks distributed by the WCC.
The WEA is an association of organizations and churches, claiming a membership of some 420 million evangelical Christians worldwide. If confirmed, the WEA would abandon its basic beliefs, signing up to a doctrine developed by at least some religious leaders questioning what evangelicals regard as Biblical truths and backed by leaders of Islam and other religions, BosNewsLife established.
For instance Hermen Shastri, the general secretary of the Council of Churches of (mainly Islamic) Malaysia and co-moderator of WCC’s Faith and Order commission, said that "religious preachers need to be told that no religion has a monopoly on the truth, that there are many ways to find salvation."
"LORD AND SAVIOR"
Within the WEA, Christians have said however that only Jesus Christ is "Lord and Savior," citing
Bible verses including the New Testament’s John 14:6: "Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." It remained unclear Wednesday, August 15, how the WEA planned to reconcile these differences.
WEA’s Schirrmacher announced his organization’s readiness to work with the WCC and Vatican 
at an 8-12 August consultation held in Toulouse, France, where some 30 Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostal and Evangelical theologians and church leaders from Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States, outlined the ‘code of conduct’, expected to be finalized by 2010.
Yet, Reverend Tony Richie from the Church of God, a Pentecostal US-based denomination, said the ‘code of conduct’ is not about "whether" Christians evangelize, but "how" they do it. He advocated "dialogical evangelism" which he claimed should be "ecumenically oriented." Some evangelical scholars have questioned this approach saying Jesus never said He is "a way" but rather "the way" to the Father who is God, according to the Bible they regard as God’s Word.
However the WCC said that the ‘code of conduct’ should "on the one hand establish what all the partners agree needs to be banned when it comes to Christian mission, a daunting task given the many different contexts involved." Among those issues was "a US Pentecostal struggling with the fact that Pentecostals "are indeed ecumenical but just don’t know it," the WCC explained.
ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY
Launched in May 2006 near Rome, Italy, the ‘code of conduct’ is part of an ecumenical project named "An interreligious reflection on conversion: From controversy to a ‘shared code of conduct’." WCC and Vatican representatives announced they would open contacts with Islam and other faiths "to study ways to avoid conflicts."
The Head of the Interreligious Relations Office for the WCC, Hans Ucko, has already suggested that Christian evangelists should stay away from places in the Muslim world where conversion from Islam is a punishable offense, BosNewsLife monitored.
Some evangelical groups say there are no limits on spreading the Gospel as Jesus Christ died at the cross for the sins of everyone, before His resurrection on the third day, "so whoever believes in Him has everlasting life," as mentioned for instance in Bible verse John 3:16.
They seem to suggest that the ‘code of conduct’ paves the way to the impending temporary rule by the ‘Anti-Christ’ as described in the Bible. The move comes nearly four years after leaders at an unprecedented religious congress in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan agreed to create what they called a "United Nations of Religions."
NEW BUILDING OFFERED
In September 2003, the President of the mainly Muslim and former Soviet nation, Nursultan Abish-uly Nazarbayev, offered to provide a new building in the capital Astana for the organization where disputes can be discussed in a neutral setting.
Delegates in Astana said they would call the organization "the Congress of World and Traditional Religions", dropping the word "national" because most faiths stretch across national boundaries.
Evangelical commentators, including best-selling author Hal Lindsey, have warned that organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union with apparent support from the Vatican and likely WCC groups, are increasingly trying to create a "universally excepted religion ideology", a far cry from Christianity. (With BosNewsLife Research and BosNewsLife Monitoring).
