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Saturday, 05 September 2009

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Ian Chisnall

Come on this is abject nonsense. Ecumenism is not about bringing structures together to create a reconciled structure, ecumenism is the recognition that despote our differences (structural or tradition based) that we are one church and despite these we can work together on matters of mission and bring reconciliation between man and God. If we wait for denominations to be reconciled to one another we will all have to watch hell freeze over.

Chris Sissons

Thanks Ian. This was a difficult post to write and your response illustrates this. The point you make is one I have made many times in this blog. I thought I was showing why bringing structures together won't work. You think I'm advocating structural unity. I suspect I still have not expressed myself very clearly. The seoond paragraph is probably the problem. Even today this vision of structural unity keeps ecumenism going. This post explores one reason why the vision is no longer viable.

The last paragraph is saying that the old structural approach cannot work.

Formal talks will continue because they have been and continue to be to some degree successful. But this success is severely limited because the churches can no longer depend upon reception by local Christians, for many reasons, and particularly because many local Christians are no longer part of the historic churches.

I have explored at great length how a new approach to ecumenism might be approached. This post is the first in a sequence exploring more traditional ecumenism from the perspective the alternative approaches I'm exploring.

I will take greater care to spell out my position in future.

Ian Chisnall

So we are on the same page after all. Unity breaks out at least between us!

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