The Goal of Ecumenism 5: Striving for the Goal

This is the fifth in a sequence of posts based upon Chris James' blog post  The Goal of Ecumenism: Why and how to be one , part VI.  The first of these posts is  Why Are We Divided?, the second is  The Visibility of the Church, the third is  Ecumenism and Ecclesiality and the fourth is Openness versus Effort .

Newbigin hoped the unified Church of South India would serve, as a catalyst for more local unions.  Sadly, it was largely an isolated event and therefore, according to Newbigin, it "failed in one of its great purposes".

It is worth asking why it failed to be a catalyst.

The Church of South India  (CSI) was inaugurated in 1947, 37 years after the Edinburgh Missionary Conference  of 1910, commonly regarded as the beginning of modern ecumenism.  This was well before the nineteen sixties period of ecumenical enthusiasm and presumably Newbigin  was active in the UK over this period.

We now look back on the same conference from a perspective of almost 100 years, almost three times the distance Newbigin had in 1947.  We live in a different culture and are aware of more problems and opportunities, or at least different ones to Newbigin's. 

The assumption Newbigin made was that the approach that worked in South India would work elsewhere.  It does but I think from our perspective today, Newbigin assumed it was the specific structure of CSI that would catalyse ecumenical change when he should have focused on the process whereby CSI was founded.

I agree the focus needs to be local mission rather than academic (or conciliar is perhaps a better description of the F&O approach).  The reason ecumenism needs to be focused locally, at a distance from traditional conciliar ecumenism, is that through local grounded conversations radical solutions to the issues the churches face can be found.  Formal talks, whilst useful, have never been able to find radical solutions in this way.

And we do need to take the need for repentance seriously .  Newbigin's example of how two churches in a village reflected the pre-existing divisions, is by no means an isolated example.  Many recent Christian divisions reflect racism, for example.  This applies not only in obvious places such as South Africa during apartheid or the United States, for too long in the wake of slavery.  In Britain, Christian immigrants from the Caribbean during the fifties and sixties also found little welcome in the indigenous churches.  Today we have the real possibility of splits in the Anglican communion over the ordination of women or discrimination against people on the grounds of sexuality.

In the past Christian splits were primarily doctrinal.  Today in our enlightened modern era, we split over racism, sexism and homophobia.  I will spell this out because it seems to need to be spelt out.  Today our churches split not only because of doctrinal differences but also because of who people are.  We are prepared to sacrifice unity because some Christians cannot embrace their brothers and sisters in Christ.

We should be seeking new structures which enable the churches to relate and to practice together in new ways.  It is a testimony to the flexibility of the Local Ecumenical Partnership  (LEP) in Britain that it is still going strong albeit used in different ways to the experiments in the sixties.  But it is also a testimony to inertia that so few new structures have been found.

LEPs are designed to maintain the integrity of their member churches.  It is always stated the aim is not to create an alternative ecumenical denomination.  It does seem odd therefore they are seen as vehicles to unity, when they are in point of fact monuments to disunity.  They have immense value in the local scene but we are mistaken if we see them as vehicles for full visible unity.

They grew out of the enthusiasm of the sixties and Newbigin's vision but the denominational churches have acted as custodians of their traditions all along and there is no evidence this is going to change.  So local churches must trust their denominational authorities to maintain their integrity and challenge them with new structures to carry forward the mission of the church in all its fullness.

Comments

[Chris]

Chris,

Thanks for all this thoughtful reflection on my essay. I wish I had more time to comment, but as my employment transitions, and I apply for PhD programs, time is extremely scarce. I do have one essential comment on this post: The role of co-mission in the ecumenical project, which Newbigin identified as primary, has not yet been seriously pursued. The desire to reflect our unity can only be brought to a boiling point by the urgency of our co-mission and the impediment that our disunity presents. I suspect that the 'form of the unity we seek' will be determined by what it takes to effectively cooperate in the kingdom mission. This is far more than 'reconciled diversity' and yet other than 'institutional unity'. It is our mission that must be the palpable unity between all who follow Jesus. When I long for the opportunity to catalyze this type of local ecumenism through mission.

[Chris Sissons]

Yes, I think you are right. My final pargraphs about LEPs were I think edging towards a similar view. Where are the strucutures to assist us with mission? I plan to run a short series of posts in the near future, attempting to envision some new structures precisely for this purpose.