Exploring Ecumenism

A New Ecumenical Vision

In this and the next few posts I want to explore a few scenarios.  I suppose the first post in this series is the one about scenario planning .  One drawback of the method is its costs in terms of people, time and finance.  It would be a major step forward to carry out something like it.  Even within one country, to bring together the widest range of representatives of all types of church to work on future scenarios would be a very significant step.  Whilst this is something which could be attained over a few years focused work, it is not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. 

So, I want to ask what some new scenarios might be like.  The point of this and next two posts is not to suggest a way forward for the churches in Britain, only they can do that, but to show there are positive scenarios available to us beyond traditional full visible unity.

Participative Methods 6: Scenario Planning

This is another in my occasional series exploring specific participative methods.  The others can be found under the category Participation and the first in the series is here.

Scenario Planning is described in full in Adam Kahane's book 'Solving Tough Problems' .  It works like this.

Two Ecumenisms?

The arrangements put in place by the Roman Catholic Church  to admit Anglicans disillusioned by women bishops has highlighted a couple of other issues about ecumenism in Britain. 

The joint statement  made by the two archbishops recently states what might be called mainstream ecumenism will continue between the two churches.  These are the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC ) and the International Anglican Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM ).  I am sure they will continue but we need to understand something of the context in which they will continue.

It is significant that this move came as something of a surprise to the Archbishop of Canterbury and I will explore the reasons for this in my next post.  It seems to me that we are moving into an era where we have at least two ecumenisms.

The Goal of Ecumenism 4: Openness versus Effort

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

I must confess to a degree of impatience with the idea that ecumenism is a some sort of eschatological truth.  Of course I understand that the fullness of God's plan for humanity will not be revealed until the end times.  But how practical is it to assert this truth?  It feels like a cop out: we can't do anything about it now because it is an eschatological truth.

The Goal of Ecumenism 3: Ecumenism and Ecclesiality

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

Section IV of the post explores 'Ecumenism and Ecclesiality'.  Here James contrasts the view that the churches are united through a common baptism with the view that no church is in itself complete.  This incompleteness is expressed through disunity amongst other things and requires repentance as the root of the ecumenical vision.

The Goal of Ecumenism 2: The Visibility of the Church

This is the second in a sequence of posts based upon Chris James' blog post The Goal of Ecumenism: Why and how to be one .  The first of these posts is Why Are We Divided? 

Section III of the post, 'Ecumenism and the Visibility of the Church', explores the "the most hotly debated ecumenical question": should the church be one visible community or is its unity somehow invisible?  I summarise it below but it is better to read the section in James' post in full.

1. James explores the thinking of Stanley Grentz, a free church theologian who argues denominationalism emphasises the invisibility of the church and that visibility is inevitably sectarian as it must point to a particular visible church.   
2. James then turns to a Catholic view of visible unity.  This view recognises the baptism of other traditions but seeks a reunion within the Catholic Church and so in a way is similar to Grentz's position in its desire not to call its own ecclesiology into question.
3. Then James turns to the ecumenism of the World Council of Churches.  The WCC seeks a united church in a single communion.  It is this view that has given rise to the contrasting positions of full visible unity and reconciled diversity.  The latter is understood as the openness churches have to each other.  Newbigin is quoted as an advocate of the former although he seems to take a midway position, seeking for example interchangeability of ministers, which is somehow short of full institutional union.  His criticism of reconciled diversity is that it make intellectual agreement the basis of unity, which is a mistake because it overemphasises the importance of doctrinal agreement.

Elements of Mission 4: Obedience

Elements of Mission is a term used by Timothy Radcliffe at the CTE Forum a few weeks ago.  I have previously discussed his thoughts on doctrine and morality and added my own about community.  Before I finish I will add one more of my own; obedience.

Why?  I suppose Radcliffe's reference to Sachs on obedience brought this to mind.  In my last post I briefly mentioned the word obey does not feature in Biblical Hebrew.  This means the concept only appears in Aramaic and common Greek scriptures.

Elements of Mission 2: Doctrine

Timothy Radcliffe's  key idea here is 'faithful questioning'.  Faithful questioners are rooted in their community and engage from that perspective in rational debate. Radcliffe does acknowledge of course that churches have not always been noted for their practice of rational debate but we would do well to try to get hold of what he's driving at.

He argues that the vigour of the churches relates to their powers of rational debate.  Churches lose vigour through silence; they fear to speak out because it might threaten their unity (the unity of their tradition even before they embark on ecumenical conversations). 

Is the Tide Going Out for Ecumenism?

Photo by Sten.  Marsh at the small island Vorsø in Denmark. Ebb-tide.

I am grateful to Ian Chisnal for his comment on my last post.  You can read my response if you visit the post.  What I want to do is start here with one of Ian's statements:

'Ecumenism is not about bringing structures together to create a reconciled structure, ecumenism is the recognition that despite 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.'

I don't disagree with this sentence except that I wonder whether there is to some degree a false dichotomy between 'bringing structures together' and working 'together on matters of mission and bring reconciliation between man  and God'. 

Horizontal and Vertical Ecumenism

This idea has been around for a long time and I think it is something anyone who is involved in ecumenism will eventually encounter.

Usually we think of ecumenism as a movement to bring reconciliation to the historic mainstream churches.  So, we may be inclined to think of ecumenism as simply agreement between the councils of the various churches.  Such agreement may be a long way off but it is the vision that keeps ecumenism going.

The diagram shows the historic churches as columns but the rows are additional theological positions, which divide the historic churches and at the same time unite Christians with similar views across the churches.  So, for example, evangelicals are found in most traditions and will have more in common with evangelicals across the traditions than with non-evangelical members of their own tradition.