Exploring Ecumenism

Called to be One 7: Life in the Spirit

This post relates to the seventh critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Life in the Spirit and the Whole of Creation .

This seventh section begins: Ecumenism reflects acceptance of ‘I have need of you’ in solidarity with the whole of creation. The whole world needs the gospel, and for this only a life in the Spirit is adequate, which comes via prayer. 

It's difficult to grasp what this critical issue is about, unless it is a concern that young people are disconnected.

Of course, Christians should be in solidarity with one another.  That they frequently achieve deadly enemy status is a scandal.  The aim of such solidarity is not unity between the churches but the reconciliation of all things to God.  This is an outrageous claim.

The world can manage perfectly well without the Gospel.  The Gospel is a gift from God for the community of followers of Jesus Christ.  The world functions without the Gospel and so we need to take care our claims do not sound like Christian triumphalism.   

Spiritual ecumenism  is a modest approach, with significant potential and so we really don't need grandiose claims.  Why?  The world does not need the Gospel because the world is a sinful place, a world that has evolved , not according to some great divine plan but along its own lines of least resistance.  This has resulted in sentient and self-centred humanity.

The second paragraph is better (apart from 'the spiritual dimension', whatever that's supposed to be).  Here we learn the purpose of prayer is to highlight our differences and  through slowing down and listening to God, form a counter culture. 

We need to understand how small scale much of this is.  Our faith brings meaning into a world created by chance.  We find that out of unregarded gestures, our relationships, torn between a fallen world and a God we can hardly comprehend, we sometimes make sense of the bizarre circumstances we inhabit.

Through prayer we learn to understand our world at a deeper level, and this understanding helps us respond to the world in creative and relevant ways.  Perhaps when we pray together out of our various traditions, we can share complementary insights which will build on our response to the world together.

Spiritual Ecumenism

A short break from Called to be One - What Next? to explain Spiritual Ecumenism.  My main source is a short book by Cardinal Walter Kasper (above), President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.  The book is called A Handbook of Spiritual Ecumenism .

Called to be One 6: Leaders and the Whole People of God

This post relates to the sixth critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Leaders and the Whole People of God .

Support is offered to local church leaders, through organisations like Churches Together in England.  This includes an annual training conference for new ecumenical officers.  The English National Ecumenical Officers offer support for anyone working ecumenically.  The Methodist and United Reformed Churches have a mentoring scheme for ministers new to Local Ecumenical Partnerships and a retired Bishop offers support to Diocesan Bishops and Methodist District Chairs.  Further work continues to identify resources and opportunities for developmental support.

And yet everyone knows this is not enough.  I don't believe the problem is lack of training and development, resources or even the negative attitudes of some church leaders.  The problem goes deeper.  It resides in a superficial understanding of ecumenism. 

Called to be One 5: More about Power

This post relates to the fifth critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Power .

The last sentence in this part of the report is interesting.  The ecumenical task is to help the churches operate from a powerless base.  The reason it is interesting is, it is impossible.  What on earth do the authors mean?

There is no such thing as a 'powerless base'.  There is always power.  It is not equally distributed and often people do not know how to use it or the consequences of using it in their chosen way.  But it is always there.

So, how might we think about power as ecumenists?  The report touched upon power earlier and I commented earlier in this series . 

Called to be One 4: Denominationalism and Local Ecumenism

This post relates to the fourth critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Denominationalism and Local Ecumenism .

Building on my last post , let me approach consumerism from a different direction. 

Christianity is a faith rooted in history.  Its strength is its ability to adapt to new situations, to be contextualised, or incarnated, in the particular.

Of course, some traditions claim their faith is timeless and must not adapt to context.  But the reality is as faith spreads, it spreads in particular, not generic ways.  The success of many missions was rooted in local people taking on the faith and moulding it to their own culture.  Christianity is good at this, whether or not the missionaries or evangelists approve.

Called to be One 3: Our Context and its Influence

This post relates to the third critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Our Context and its Influence .

This critical issue does not seem to be very well defined.  What is our context?  Presumably, the writers mean England.  England is a big and complex place, so what is the context?

I do not think decline is a particularly significant part of our context.  Some parts of the church are declining and others are growing.  What is important is consumerism, as the writers suggest.

Called to be One 2: Unity, Diversity and the Goal

This post relates to the second critical issue in Called to be One: What Now?, Unity, Diversity and the Goal . 

A few months ago, I joined a Pentecostal prayer meeting at an ecumenical gathering.  I found it extremely difficult!  I reacted negatively to being told what to pray for and to pray for it aloud myself.  This was a two-fold problem, as I neither agreed with the issue I was told to pray for nor did I like being told to pray to order. 

Called to be One 1: Some Concerns about Power

A few weeks ago I mentioned the document, Called to be One - what now? ; an account of a conference held last November.  Many of the people who attended were involved in the publication of a document, Called to be One, in 1996.  Re-reading this 15 years later, it seems both fresh and dated at the same time.

Much of it is still current today and yet things are very different.  The main difference is a loss of confidence in the ecumenical movement in England.  The people who organised and attended the November 2009 conference can easily be dismissed as an older generation, out of touch with the painful realities of the present day. I think the reality is more complex. 

Is Evolution Calvinist?

And so we arrive at Wesley's third great doctrine : Sanctification.  If Justification  is the decision to tread the narrow path between order and chaos; between license and morality, then Sanctification is how in practice we tread that path.  Sanctification is a lifelong journey; nothing like a life committed to one or the other of those so-called alternatives.

Wesley's theology is future-orientated.  For Calvinists, God is the all-powerful creator, who made the world, just so.  Everything was determined from the very beginning, down to who will and who will not be saved.  Their focus is on the past.

For Wesleyans, the future is more important.  From humanity's perspective, creation is incomplete.  The invitation is to contribute to the completion of God's creation.  This means all people can be saved.  Nothing is predestined. 

Justification and Imperialism

In my last post , I argued the Christian doctrine of Original Sin and the theory of evolution are entirely compatible.  This is something of an embarrassment because Augustine of Hippo's doctrine of original sin has encouraged so much Christian censoriousness.  He argued that the sin (of Adam and Eve) is communicated through the sex act and this has been enough to justify a fear of sex, damaging to the life of the church, including the position of women, who have been accused of the fall in much the same way as the Jews are accused of murdering Jesus.

Original sin is the first of Wesley's three great doctrines and so we need to look at the other two before we arrive at a final conclusion.  The next is Justification by faith.