Exploring Ecumenism

The Future of 'Exploring Ecumenism'

I have, during the last week, been reviewing my blogging and now I am at the stage where I can announce the changes I intend to make over the coming months.  Why am I making these changes?

A Seasonal Pause

There will be a pause for a week or so whilst I take a (well earned?) rest.  Please take this opportunity to explore this blog.  I have a lot of new ideas and will be announcing them soon after my return.

You may like to visit this post which is a request for material to share about ecumenism on this site.  But any thoughts or comments would be welcome and responded to upon my return.

The Relevance of Cosmology to Ecumenism

It is time to take stock and attempt to bring what might be seen as a long diversion into science and cosmology, back to my main theme.  What relevance has cosmology to ecumenism? 

An earlier post in this sequence developed some of my thoughts and in the next few posts I will develop the following in more detail:

1. The need for a new Christian cosmology.
2. Cosmology as context: The move away from structural unity
3. The re-enchantment of the material world.
4. Compassion and ecumenism

5. Faith and Belief

Ecumenism and Science

Some time ago I opened up the theme of cosmology and did not pursue it.  The time has come to pick it up and develop it in a more systematic way.  The first thing though is to say cosmology is part of the wider theme of science in general.  My intention is to follow up several themes under this heading, including Darwinism as well as cosmology.  I also intend to touch on the debates about atheism.

Why cover these issues in a blog about ecumenism? 

Future Plans for 'Exploring Ecumenism'

A few days ago I summarised where I have got to over the last few months.  Today I am going to outline my plans for this blog.  They have developed over the weeks since I started and I suppose they will continue to develop.

I intend to do some work on the layout of the blog so that it will be possible to visit pages to explore certain themes.  I have already worked on themes around conversations, systems theory, reception, diversity and sanctification.  The first two will require a substantial amount of additional attention, the last three less so. 

The idea is these pages, and a few new ones, will in time form an archive of my explorations of ecumenical theory.  I will also from time to time contribute posts that relate to immediate themes, as they come up in the news or in my experience.  These will tend to be shorter and link to longer posts in the archive pages.

So, what about future themes?  The first of the bullets below is an overarching theme, relating to all three dimensions of ecumenical work.  The other bullets all relate to transformative reception.

• A lot more about conversations and participative approaches to ecumenism.  This will form an overarching theme and I hope a more practical one.
• The relationships between the Christian traditions and modern science.  In particular, to explore modern cosmologies, as understood through quantum mechanics and complexity theory.
• Darwinism as a case study about the relationships between the traditions and science.
• Socio-economic challenges to the traditions, especially climate change, racism and debt / the credit crunch.
• I am also considering some work on violence and atheism although these are less central to my overall plan.

Plans for Exploring Ecumenism

Just before a short Christmas break, I thought it would be good to summarise my plans.  I've planned this blog with the aim of working out my own understanding of ecumenism.  I'm hoping to add a range of ideas I've come across over the last few years and then to try and make sense of them all.  There is still a lot more to add and here is a summary of what I have in mind for the next few months.

1. More thoughts about conversation and where new approaches are being used inside and outside the churches.  I'm also hoping to explore the place of conversation in Christian theology and how this theology might assist understanding the ecumenical task (whatever it is).
2. Pick up my own tradition and explore some of the implications of Wesleyan theology, especially Methodist understanding of sanctification. 
3. An exploration of the growth of Methodism and other working class movements in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  My particular emphasis will be on the development of mutuals.
4. An exploration of modern science especially cosmology and quantum physics.  The churches need to address some of these emerging paradigms in their theologies.
5. Particular exploration of Darwinism and evolution. 
6. This will lead me to consider the implications of militant atheism.
7. Detailed consideration of the potential for ecumenism to address key issues - climate change, debt, racism.

This is a general outline and I have every intention of being side-tracked as new issues are drawn to my attention.

A Merry Christmas to all my non-readers.

Christian Praxis Group

I participated in the Urban Theology Unit study year in 1981-2.  Six of us, who between us were on the study years between 1979 and 1982, met for the first time during 1983 and have met 2 - 4 times a year ever since.  We have met for study and support for over 25 years and call ourselves the Christian Praxis Group.  At first we saw ourselves as a continuation of the study year but have long since stopped reporting to the UTU AGM.

I'm trying to remember why we used the word Praxis in out name.  It is a word that is used where both action and reflection are deployed in a mutually interdependent way.  To act without reflection is known as activism and to reflect without action, verbalism, is a sterile activity, and perhaps a mark of academic theology.

The word is Greek and seems to have been used by Marx and, through the reflection on Marxism which was a facet of Latin American Liberation Theology, the word seems to have found its way into general reflection about contextual theology.  However, the word is deployed in the New Testament, most prominently in the title of the 'Acts of the Holy Apostles', Praxeis ton Agion Apostolon.

Over 25 years the group has covered an immense amount of ground and regularly studies the New Testament in the original Greek as well as exploring community development and adult education.  The category 'Praxis' in this blog is linked to posts that are related to the work of the Christian Praxis Group.  So, unlike other categories, 'Praxis' will include posts which are not themselves about Praxis but relate to matters the group has discussed over the years.

Ecumenical theology has developed in the context of the growth of radical or contextual theology during the last few decades.  I wonder to what extent it has responded to this movement in theology.  Often ecumenical theological conversations seem to take place remote from the local practitioners of ecumenism.  Contextual theology implies the conversations which take place locally, where ecumenism is done, are at least of equal value to the conversations between church leaders.  The practical implications of this emphasis, were it taken seriously, are profound.  Maybe the insights of small groups of Christians seriously discussing their theology would be of value here.

New Ecumenical Paradigms

I found this paragraph in an article by Jill Sandham and Hugh Dawes, chair and honorary secretary of the Progressive Christianity Network, Hope for Church in the 21^st century which can be found in Together in Hope: Proclaiming God's Justice Living God's Love, edited by Adrian Alker.  The article refers to Christianity's history of 'self-preservation and justification':

In reaction to that history, it is hardly surprising that in the twentieth century institutional Christianity became so preoccupied with the pursuit and recovery of unity.  We who write shared in that ourselves, and were excited by it.  But the liberation all too quickly turned sour.  In the hands of institutional Christianity, unity, which briefly seemed so exciting and so possible, got twisted into a concern for uniformity of a narrowly doctrinal and credal form.  With the result that today the institutional church can appear more divided and distorted than ever before.  (Page 39)

They look forward to the end of the institutional church and the formation of an associational church.  They argue that Western society 'uses power to enforce obedience'.  Further, 'institutional church governs largely through the clergy in much the same way'.  In an associational church, authority is 'something freely granted and bestowed by others'.

When I started working in formal ecumenism in 2003 there was some excitement about the possibility of a new paradigm for ecumenism.  Overall the thought was that it was not for us to formulate this paradigm; perhaps the generation of ecumenists to follow us would do it.

I am beginning to think it is too late.  The new paradigm is here, perhaps not fully articulated, but many Christians have already made up their minds about ecumenism.  The paradigm cannot be fully articulated by the Progressive Christianity Network or indeed any single organisation because the intriguing thing is there seems to be a consensus of sorts across a wide range of theologies and ecclesiologies. 

If there is a common factor it is age.  Somewhere between 30 and 40 years, there is a divide between older people who still see the traditional denominations as key to ecumenism and the younger who do not recognise denominations in the same way.  This younger group either rejects denominations altogether or moves between them; unwilling to make a commitment to one for life.

The quotation refers to the excitement at the pursuit and recovery of unity.  I hope to try to convey some of that excitement, as well as ask what has happened to it, in a future post.

Perhaps PCN is right and we must look forward to a future associational church.  The problem is that not everyone is going to travel in that particular direction.  It is an idea that is attractive to me but I don't see how we can turn our back on other churches that do not choose this path.  Somehow the ecumenical vision has to be wider than any one approach to the faith.  The ecumenical task has become more complex.

Ecumenical blogs

I have been searching for ecumenical blogs and have found an interesting post about how ecumenism might be carried forward through discussion about religions on blogs.  The blog is Something New in Ecumenism: Blog-level Ecumenism. 

This was posted in May 2007 and I wonder how the author views his work 18 months later.  The blog is from an American context (so far I haven't found any British blogs about ecumenism, although I'm still looking).  My impression is that most blogs about ecumenism from the States originate from a Catholic or Orthodox background which suggests a rather different context to my experience in Britain.

I have maintained that blogs and web2 applications generally have a role to play in ecumenism as an adjunct to face to face conversations and so I have some reservations about blog-level ecumenism.  However, one major advantage is the potential for conversations between people who would not otherwise meet.

A search for ecumenical resources

Time for a break from conversations, to explain more about this blog.  It can be too easy to be bogged down in ecumenical conversations and activities and so I hope to include ideas for churches and ecumenical groups.  I don't in any way wish to portray ecumenism as an activity that is not worthwhile but it can come across as worthy and, well, dull.  It shouldn't be this way and so one of my responses will be to gather in one place resources for ecumenists.  There will be loads of reflection, much of it theological, because it interests me and also because I want to encourage debate about why we do ecumenism.  Here are some examples of other things I would like to collect:

1. Stories - some maybe contributed by committed ecumenists, along the lines of why I am still a ..., others will be stories I add in from time to time from various sources.
2. Neighbourhoods - most ecumenical work is done in neighbourhoods - I hope to add posts showing how churches have developed work in their neighbourhoods.
3. Images - apart from logos and pictures of groups of people posing during some ecumenical meeting, ecumenism seems short of images.  Is there any exciting stuff anywhere? 
4. Worship materials - for use in any worship not just joint services.
5. Humour - there must be some ecumenical humour out there somewhere - I've rarely encountered any - there must be some - surely?  If you have any examples, please ensure they are funny before sharing them!

If you have resources to share, directly or through a link, I would be delighted to add your material, acknowledged and with due regard for copyright restrictions of course.