Exploring Ecumenism

Patience and God's Timing for Unity

Image of patience on a monument by Maia C via Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the fifth of eight posts reflecting upon a recent paper released by the Conference of European Churches.  The background can be found in a post on Methodist Ecumenical News.  The paper is Visions of Unity in Our Churches - Points of Convergence.

The report includes eight points of convergence and I thought it might be interesting to consider them one by one. 

Convergence 5

The search for unity always exists in a particular context. We have to discern how our quest for unity relates to the timing of God and demands of mission in any given time or situation. Patience is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5) and one we must exercise when considering how to take forward the ecumenical agenda, not confusing God’s timing with our own.

The search for unity takes place in many different contexts.  The way this is phrased implies it can nevertheless be controlled from a central perspective.  We identify the particular context and then our theologians will come up with a well researched and reasoned answer.

Well, theologians of the world, I have news for you (and most of you will know this already): there is no particular context for the search for unity.  It's much more complicated than that, isn't it? 

Let's start with geography.  A neighbourhood.  How many churches are in that neighbourhood?  Do they all relate to one another?  Is it not possible churches close the edge might relate to different churches or even think they're in a different neighbourhood?

And can we be certain the members of any given local church agree about church unity, have the same aims?  And of course, the context is not just local.  Do the church members know the views of their local, regional and national church hierarchy? 

Then there are inter-generational differences.  And differences based upon race or family background.

It is comforting to know patience is a fruit of the spirit and 'one we must exercise when considering how to take forward the ecumenical agenda'.  Who is this 'we'?  It is a little word that often gives a lot away.  Does it mean the people at this particular consultation?  Or the church hierarchies?  Whoever they are, it seems we can safely leave it in their hands.  God's timing?

We're offered some platitudes about patience.  What is it about God's timing?  You'd think God has agreed with the ecumenical statements made by the churches but not finally settled on a timescale.  Nonsense!  Whatever happens will not emerge from the writings of theologians or agreements between church leaders.  We will stumble upon the living reality of unity in Christ in the struggle to work out a way forward together in many localities, despite the impossibility of fully comprehending what is going on globally.

Related articles

• Ecclesial Indentities and Visible Unity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Visions of Unity in Our Churches (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Unity in Life and Mission (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Points of Convergence on the Unity of the Church (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Ecclesial and Eucharistic Community (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Ecumenical Formation (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Mission, Formation and Unity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Full Visible Unity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• One Church or Many? (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Most Things Don't Work

Image by Xavier Luque via Flickr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suppose I approach ecumenism not so much from the perspective of an academic theologian, as that of a community development worker.  One insight I developed over many frustrating years is, 'Most things don't work'.  This is equally true of ecumenism.

The history of ecumenism is littered with initiatives that haven't worked.  Usually, they are voted down by the council of one church or another and many more never get off the drawing board.

I suspect this insight occurred to me because before community development, I was a research scientist in the field of biology.  I discovered most experiments don't work but failure is fundamental to evolution.  Evolution is based on the principle of most things not working.

Of course, a few things do work.  But it is a fallacy to believe it is the best things that survive.  I suspect many scientists have difficulty remembering this, it is easy to assume the best has been selected.  This is because Western philosophy is strongly influenced by Plato and his idea of the (platonic) ideal. 

Theologians are influenced by the same ideals and the last gasp struggle of the proponents of 'intelligent design' demonstrate Plato's ideal is far from dead.  We need to understand, in evolution as much as the church, the Spirit works through diversity and chaos. 

The problem is, as humanity has become self-aware, we tend to undermine the harmony in creation in our search for order, design and perfection.  The place to seek God is not in the illusion of order and perfection but in what appears to be random.

It is an interesting question - what is random?  How do we know something is random?  One extreme would be to argue randomness is lack of knowledge; beneath the sequence of apparently random numbers there are causes.  For example, take pseudo-random numbers.  There is no way of distinguishing a good sequence of pseudo random numbers from genuine random numbers.

Now this might be a source of rejoicing for creationists except for one minor problem.  Nature doesn't use numbers.  Reality might be nudged by God but how it responds to any nudge must be unpredictable.

The history of religion has always been the struggle between those who seek to impose order on God's creation, and those who value freedom to respond to God spontaneously.  If we insist on imposing order on our churches, then splits are inevitable.  We can choose to make our ideals absolute and split the church.  Or we can agree splits are inevitable.  This means we all have freedom to be heretics, as all spirit led people are, alongside the apparently ordered life the churches. 

There is nothing to fear from heresy because most things don't work!  There is everything to fear from orthodoxy (whatever type) because it uses force to impose order that does not exist.

Related articles

• Harmony and Control (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Harmony in Diversity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

More about Memory and Imagination

At a presentation a few weeks ago, I made a suggestion.  The presentation was about a change of approach, undertaken by PCTs (Primary Care Trusts), to their work in communities.  There is a move from a needs based approach to an assets based approach.  It's not too important for my argument what these approaches mean but to aid understanding: needs-based approaches identify and attempt to meet the needs of communities, whilst assets-based approaches focus on the assets already present in the community.

One school of thought is demonstrated in diagram A.  Here there is a simple transition from a needs-based to an assets-based approach.

The speaker suggested a more helpful approach would be diagram B.  Here both needs and assets are identified, leading to a means to map the community in terms of its needs and assets.  So, a community might be low in terms of some needs but have the means to address them because it is high in certain assets.

I'm a bit sceptical about these types of approach.  Both are assessments made by outsiders, on their terms to meet their own targets.  To understand what is going on in a given community, perhaps we need a model like diagram C.  Here the PCT might have been using the needs-based approach with (lets be generous) a degree of success.  But over time, there are diminishing returns and so it is appropriate to introduce a new assets-based approach.  Similarly, this might start out as effective but over time becomes less so.  As each approach delivers fewer returns, there will be a need to develop new approaches.

What any community will experience as projects progress through their life cycle, is a sense of stuckness.  Circumstances will improve to the extent people have the imagination to develop a next step.  To do this they need to move outside the mindset of the current models (needs, assets or what-have-you) and find a new paradigm. 

The thing is people remember.  They remember the old projects and the old models.  Any new movement will be successful to the extent to which it acknowledges past experience in the neighbourhood.  Old models can weigh heavily on a community, where the people have seen it all before.  The new worker is at a disadvantage because she does not remember, the residents are at a disadvantage because they do. 

This is the problem with any experience of stuckness.  Memory reminds us of all the things that have been tried (and failed) and so undermines imagination.  But without memory, imagination cannot grapple with the reality of this specific place and time.

But being stuck, in a community or in church relationships, is a good place to be.  It's a good place to be because it is where God is to be found.  Our mindsets are full of assumptions that have to be addressed to enable us to become unstuck.  Old methods, for example, faith and order approaches, no longer work because they have become constraints on our imagination.  We need to remember but also step outside our old assumptions.

Elements of Mission 1: Community

Over the next few posts I will comment upon the three elements of mission Timothy Radcliffe suggested at the CTE Forum recently.  Here they are:

1. Community
2. Doctrine
3. Morality

Radcliffe had a great deal to say about the second two and virtually nothing to say about the first because it presents no problem for our culture.  So, that is where I will start.

Boundaries Overcoming Communities

In my last post, I described the boundary protected community and showed how in neighbourhoods and in the churches these tend to sustain the power of elites, both internal to these communities and external to them.

One way of challenging this is to consciously view community as open to the whole of humanity.  Such a community would seek to overcome boundaries and offer a welcome to all people irrespective of their origins or beliefs.  The problem is that this understanding, whilst theoretically acknowledging marginalised people, still tends not to hear them.

Boundary Protected Communities

Kim, in Christ's Body in Corinth, identifies various approaches to understanding community.  It is common knowledge in British community work circles that there are 114 definitions of the word community.  The number does vary but the point is that there are lots.

This reflects the fact the politically the word community is contested.  Community is universally understood to be 'a good thing'.  So, political parties at local and national government levels want a slice of the action and individual politicians and officers see community as a positive career move.

This means that 'boundary protected communities' result from a complex web of interests; not only a simple model of members of the community seeking protection, belonging and identity through identification with that particular community. 

Neighbourhood Church 5: Power

The problem is that presence, prayer, practice and proclamation are not always enough.  If churches genuinely care for their communities there are times when they must confront the principalities and powers.

I have already described the participative method Citizens' Organising and in the United States, churches have acted together to change policies that have a negative impact on their neighbourhoods (see Linthicum's Building a People of Power).  In Britain Citizens' Organising has been tried and has not been found to be very successful.  Many of its insights are helpful but a combination of British culture and political arrangements accounts for this.

I still maintain that churches need to take Power seriously.  I have suggested that in their relationships with the world outside of the churches, churches together need to engage in transformational reception.  It is not enough to provide services to our communities, however empowering they may be.  A further step needs to be taken to change things for the better.

So, here are a few points for local churches who wish to exercise power together:

1. Churches need to think very carefully about power and how they use it.  It is easy to use power for conquest.  This is not the example of Jesus.  It is easy to use power to impose solutions on unwilling people.  This is not about Christian hegemony.  It is about the churches leading and organising to bring about change for mutual benefit.
2. Churches choosing to do this need to understand the need for consent.  They do not have the material resources to challenge government policy and so their power derives from organised people.  This means there needs to be an active building of consensus through conversations, the use of force will simply not work.
3. Whilst it is possible to get away with isolated working for the first four Ps, this type of mutual power is only possible where churches are able to work together.  This should be the focus of local conversations.  National leadership can encourage these approaches but have a minimal contribution to make.
4. It is local issues that need to be the initial focus.  As the recession bites and other intractable problems kick in, it is the local focus that will result in some successes.
5. As churches develop this focus, it is possible they might also have an impact at the national level.  But this has implications for how churches work, particularly in terms of leadership. 

The ecumenical vision has to turn outwards if it is to survive.  The luxury of ongoing debates about the minutiae of faith and order are no longer seen as relevant locally.  But the problem remains, identifying what is relevant locally and how churches might effectively work together.  I will in future suggest new approaches and where possible quote examples where new initiatives seem to be working.

Neighbourhood Church 4: Proclamation

Linthicum's fourth and (sort of) final activity for the local church is Proclamation.  This is, of course, a highly contested area.  The reason is that some Christians have made this part of the Christian faith their own.  I want to state firmly it is only a part of the Christian faith and should not be left as the sole preserve of evangelicals.

Many evangelicals would agree so far.  It is a responsibility for the whole church alongside the much wider activity of mission.  The distinction is that mission relates to sanctification whilst proclamation relates to justification.

I have written a lot about sanctification in this blog and little about justification.  This is not because I think justification is unimportant but that sanctification is less well known and has important implications for ecumenism.

Justification is the experience of the individual who comes to know the power of Jesus and that they are saved.  It is the purpose of proclamation to tell the story and introduce the non-believer to Christ.  This is done in a variety of ways and all can contribute to it.  There are a few points I would wish to make though.

1. Like everything else proclamation should be thought of in terms of a conversation.  The word itself implies a one way transaction from those who know the truth to those who don't.  The reality is that a real grasp of the faith comes out of relationships which are two way.  To discuss the faith should deepen faith for Christians as well as those who do not believe.
2. The idea of Missio Dei is important here.  God is already out there in our communities.  The act of conversation uncovers where God is already at work and so the Christian will learn as well as those who work with them.
3. It is important to remember the commitment is to a community long term irrespective of their response to the faith.  The idea that Christians are saved and others are not is presumptive and offensive.  Christians are called by God to proclaim the faith.  They are not called to judge whether others are saved - their goal is salvation of the whole community not of particular individuals within it.  If lines must be drawn it is to include people, not to exclude them.
4. By making evangelism a specialism, most church people have been de-skilled in this area.  Instead of every member being a spiritual director for others, as Wesley intended, Christians tend to be de-skilled and lack confidence to simply to tell the story.
5. And of course it is essential to tell the story in a way that makes sense to 21st century people.  This is not to water it down but to confront people with the implications of their lifestyles and the call of God to each individual.

If we take these four activities - presence, prayer, practice and proclamation together, they offer many opportunities for local churches to collaborate and many do.  In my view these opportunities could be increased by developing new ways of collaboration and I may look at some possibilities in the future.  However, whilst mission will undoubtedly be enhanced by collaboration, it has to be admitted that collaboration is not essential.  All of these things can happen in a church working on its own and with some success.

However, Linthicum argues there is a fifth activity.  The four usual activities are not on their own sufficient.  There are times when it is essential to bring something else into play.  And this time ecumenical collaboration is essential.

Neighbourhood Church 3: Practice (or Praxis)

Yesterday, I presented a rather idealistic view of the prayer life of churches together.  This may be as it should be but in practice ecumenism can be a treadmill, the constant repeating of annual ecumenical events.  From the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, through the Lent Walk, Pentecost Sunday and then carols outside the supermarket.

It seems almost as if prayer together is too much trouble and so our Practice becomes drudgery, rather than a response we take from reflection together on the reality presented by our place.

Linthicum uses the word 'practice' but I think if we are prepared to pray together, then we will find the routine of ecumenism will be transformed into Praxis, integrated action and reflection.

There are many ways churches together might choose to respond, some I've already mentioned:

• Providing unstructured meeting places
• Offering hospitality to local people and those who from time to time are in need of real support
• Providing sanctuary from the despair of modern life, a place where people can experience something of God's call
• Through community development, offering people some sense of control over what can be random or chaotic lives

Churches together can offer some or all of these or perhaps other things entirely.  The area sets the agenda.  The churches respond out of what they have in terms of people, property and finance.

Many churches do this type of thing on their own; perhaps ignoring or duplicating the work of other churches in their area.  This is a luxury we can no longer afford.  Divided churches, perhaps acting on rivalries from many decades ago are no longer a luxury we can afford.  The problems that will face the churches through climate change, peak oil, immigration, the pressures of multicultural society and of course the credit crunch require careful discernment and co-ordination of effort.  We owe our communities that much at least.

I understand that Daniel Berrigan, the American Jesuit and Peace Activist, was involved in the production of the film – “The Mission”, starring Jeremy Irons and Robert De Niro; “Well, I've been in several filmsincluding documentaries, but the big blockbuster, I was hired as advisor to the actors, I was trying to make Jesuits out of them.”

 

They were filming in Columbia and one day Berrigan took them into the slums of a town called Cartegena.  There he met a priest who told him ‘I wonder if we folks here are really Catholics’.  Berrigan asked the priest what he meant, the priest replied ‘We seem too little interested in people’.

Neighbourhood Church 2: Prayer

Prayer naturally flows from Presence, as a response to commitment to a place.  Prayer is of course an impossible conversation; conversation that brings about change. 

First, Prayer is about paying attention to the neighbourhood.  People will naturally do this alone but it is also important to share in this type of prayer because we will all see different things.  Ecumenical prayer might also bring insights from a range of traditions.

Second, the change we can most readily accept is in ourselves.  As we see more, we will change in response to what we see.  As we ponder the insights each person brings to prayer, we grow together.  In this sense we are spiritual guides for each other.

Third, we will in time see changes in the neighbourhood.  An active group committed to the welfare of the neighbourhood can hardly fail to make a difference.  Particularly if that group of people has taken the trouble to observe the neighbourhood and know it well.

Fourth, the great mystery is the changes we see in God.  As our illusions about the place we inhabit are changed, so we see God in clearer light.  We see that God is in conversation with us through the neighbourhood.  As co-creators, we and God will change.

Finally, what is the purpose of prayer?  This is prayer not for our own welfare but for the welfare of all the people with whom we share this place.