The British Council of Churches between the late 1940s and 1989 was largely Protestant and its vision was of full visible unity. This vision was supported by other parts of the world where uniting churches, eg the Church of South India, demonstrated that it was possible for Protestant churches to unite. In Britain this vision was supported by the Methodist Deed of Union in 1932 and the birth of the United Reformed Church in the early seventies.
Since 1989, with the new Churches Together approach, the model of the Council of Churches, decisions made independently of the parent churches, has given way to churches making their own decisions together. I described this in an earlier blog.
Imperceptibly, the emphasis has shifted from unity to diversity; to unity in diversity. The problem has been to find a model of reconciled diversity that is not seen as a means to avoid the complexity and difficulty of full visible unity. Even unity in diversity has to be made real in some tangible way.
I think the problem in part is that the movement from a focus on unity to a focus on diversity is not simply a shift in emphasis. Unity is a model based upon control. To place all churches under one model of governance implies this. It also implies that if we work at it hard enough we will in time solve the remaining problems and find the model that will bring all the churches together. This is to see the human relations under God as a convergent system.
Unfortunately human systems are divergent. Diversity implies no single centralised control and no overall solution to the problems we face. The approach is one of devolved centres that seek to identify and join in the movement of the spirit through their dialogue or conversation. Unity will emerge from the interactions of many players rather than the reception of decisions made through formal talks.
Clearly this will be unsatisfactory to many but we have to ask ourselves how likely it is that formal talks will unite all the churches (rather than a few) and that they will stay united. The diversity model implies we will stumble upon unity rather than plan it and this itself might seem unsatisfactory.
Divergent systems are sometimes known as soft systems and it would be helpful for ecumenists to understand them. They will, I'm sure, be described in a future strand of this blog.
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