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.

I'm a structural ecumenist.  In my day job I assist churches, where Methodists are involved, to work together.  This means all the paraphernalia of constitutions, charitable status, sharing property and finance ...  It is tedious stuff but it is there because the churches are in earnest about working together.  So, I agree entirely with James about openness.  We'll be open to other churches until the eschaton when God will finally sort everything out for us, or we can get on with the difficult challenges of sharing mission now.

Letty Russell is in good company.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams also used the idea of hospitality when he gave a keynote address at Churches Together In England's Forum in 2003.  Yes, as James says it does preserve the 'us / them' logic and seems to me to be a rickety platform on which to build our ecumenical work.  When we are jointly hospitable to the rest of the world, that will be the day!

It seems to me a surer foundation for ecumenism, is that upon which structural ecumenism is based: conversation .  Our task is to extend and deepen our conversations, including all Christians who will participate.  This is not simply being open, it is a commitment to be challenged to go deeper into our own traditions and those of other Christians.

Here are three advantages of conversations:

1. Good conversations at their best generate new insights, new plans, new structures and new mission.  This is why they are too important to be left to the experts.  It is essential local Christians enter into conversations.  This is how they can bring insights from the full church present in a neighbourhood, into the real needs of the locality.
2. Conversations deepen understanding not only of other traditions but of our own.  Why do we keep forgetting this?  Raise it and everyone agrees but few people seem to see it as of practical significance.
3. Receptive Ecumenism  asks not what I have to offer Christians of other traditions but what my tradition needs to receive from others.  I know there are traditions that object they are already perfect and don't need anything from others but the truth is we are all witnesses to God only in part.  We can offer each other insights which will help us become whole together.  We need to get into the habit of seeing the person from another tradition as someone from whom we need wrestle a new insights.  Their difference is to our advantage, a difference we can fall in love with, and seek to preserve alongside our own.

James believes ecumenism needs to be more than a sign, it needs to be a foretaste or appetizer for the eschatological feast.  Mark 1:15 is Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom of God as at hand.  It is forever at hand, the Greek means the Kingdom is present as the visitor on the doorstep is present.  It is life on a knife edge  that keeps us keen.