Exploring Ecumenism

Methodist Ecumenical News

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This is notice of a new blog I hope readers of Exploring Ecumenism might visit.

Methodist Ecumenical News (MEN) is a blog I have started for the British Methodist Connexion, one among several supported by the Connexional Team.  Where Exploring Ecumenism is my own blog and reflects my own opinions and speculations, MEN aims to report on ecumenical work from local churches, through Districts to national and international ecumenism.  Consequently, MEN will cover mainly factual events, happenings, agreements, etc. 

Exploring Ecumenism tends to be speculative; it entertains me and a few spammers, if no-one else.  So, I see MEN as an opportunity to report on more factual material.  So, the blogs will be complementary and taken together will provide a good picture of the latest thinking and action.

At the time of writing, MEN has 11 followers, more than this blog although a fraction of its age.  So, I am optimistic that it might have a real impact.  It will have a close relationship with the ecumenical section of the Methodist Church website and replaces the news stream, which was never very satisfactory.

I'm planning a backbone of regular posts, at 8am on working days.  I will do my best to cover as wide a range of ecumenical news as I can find, anything which might be of interest to Methodists.

I'm also seeking a team of occasional writers.  They will write on specialist topics.  Building this team will take some time but I hope to encourage writers to provide a wide range of material; an overview of Methodist ecumenical work.

Why Methodist?  It might seem odd to have a Methodist ecumenical blog.  This has been conceived as complementary to the Methodist Church website.  However, if the response is positive, it may be possible to explore an ecumenical ecumenical blog. 

But one step at a time.  You can help by visiting MEN and clicking the 'Follow' button in the top right (you could also follow this blog!).  Do keep and eye on it and comment - the same goes for this blog too. 

Subversive Ecumenism 5: Options for the Future

In England, many are seeking a vision for a new ecumenism and this implies the need for subversion of the existing ecumenical structures.  There is a need not just for new ideas but for a new paradigm and this is a task for all churches together - the authorities and the subversives holding each other to account and inspiring each other to change.

So, here are a few possibilities for the future:

Subversive Ecumenism 4: Limitations of Post-Denominational Churches

I have already written about the diversity of small churches in Britain.  In this post I want to assess their potential for subversive ecumenism, undermining the authorities of the mainstream traditions.

There is a continuum of post- denominational Christians.  Some younger people have stayed with the mainstream churches but their adherence to one particular tradition is weaker than previous generations. As parts of a consumer society, the traditional (and other) churches are products that can be used and discarded at will. Why not shop around until you find a church that suits? 

This is seen positively as a form of post-denominational ecumenism (Christians Together).  The old divisions no longer make sense, so there is no need to allow yourself to be formed by a specific tradition in a real time and place.

Where traditional churches have lost a sense of purpose, many new churches bring experience of the faith to groups of people otherwise untouched by the traditional churches.  As such they are a necessary challenge to the traditions, calling them to recognise a larger world than their rules and regulations might allow.

What happens when the new churches grow older?  Some people will leave, perhaps to join other churches or just cease to meet.  Others might seek ordination in a traditional denomination or move on to set up their own churches.

But what about those who remain in churches that become institutionalised?  Their problem is they have to avoid being institutionalised into a non-catholic authority.  The spirit of division can turn a spirit filled church into concrete amazingly quickly.  Interpretations by unaccountable leaders, intolerant of dissent, can soon petrify a small church.

A truly catholic church is necessarily diverse in two ways at least.  It must be diverse in terms of theology, otherwise its leadership will become authoritarian and unaccountable.  This can happen in liberal churches as much as evangelical or fundamentalist.  A single interpretation stifles dissent and stifles the spirit.

The other diversity is in the social origins of its members.  It is alarming so many churches are made up of entirely one age group, for example.  How do we develop churches where people unlike each other learn to live with and love each other?

It is clear the traditional and new churches need each other.  This is not so that the members of the new churches join the traditional.  It is so that old and new together can find a new way to preserve the fountainheads and receive new insights from the spirit.

Ecumenism is almost solely the property of the traditional churches.  Subversive ecumenism, reaching out across divisions, creating relationships beyond the doctrines that still divide comes from lay members, post-denominational worshipers or new churches.  They need the traditional churches as partners in a greater task of re-formation of the churches together.  Without the traditional churches, these small churches lack catholicity and can lose contact with the wider body of Christ.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Subversive Ecumenism 1: Achieving a Whole Church Oikoumene (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Subversive Ecumenism 2: Faith and Authority (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• The Discipline of Subversive Ecumenism (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• More thoughts about Subversive Ecumenism (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Fine Nets and Strategems (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Subversive Ecumenism 3: Ecumenical Authorities (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Subversive Ecumenism 3: Ecumenical Authorities

In England there are five main traditions, namely Roman Catholic, Church of England (Anglican / Episcopalian), Methodist, United Reformed and Baptist.  There are other major traditions in other parts of the world.  Their best kept secret is, all are already ecumenical.  All are coalitions, held together by authority of some type.  This internal ecumenism is sometimes called catholicity, the ability to hold together people who might otherwise be in deep disagreement. 

Subversive Ecumenism 2: Faith and Authority

The interface between the authorities of the traditional churches and those who would subvert them is a place of creativity.  I should stress subversive ecumenism has nothing to do with heresy.  It is an attempt to undermine from below practices that have created the ecumenical impasse.  It does not aim to destroy ecumenical work or to jeopardise future work.  The aim is to shake up deadlocked talks by bringing new perspectives to bear. 

What are these new perspectives?  They are the view from the margins.  In my paper for the Sheffield Jesus Seminar, I mentioned Kim's work on the Body of Christ.  He suggests that the Body of Christ is incomplete when the marginalised are not heard.  Where are the places where the church meets those hitherto excluded and so where creativity occurs?  The first question must always be, who is still not being heard?  Ecumenism without full participation lacks credibility.

Subversive Ecumenism 1: Achieving a Whole Church Oikoumene

The Penguin English Dictionary defines subversive as 'tending or attempting to undermine authority, established ideas, etc'.  I like this definition because it places subversive somewhere between active and passive.  It is an equivocal definition, so that subversion  tends, or attempts, not to destroy but to undermine.  Of course, some people won't like the word because it questions authority in the churches.  If you are one of them, stay with me; the choice is not between authority and subversion.

This phrase 'Subversive Ecumenism' came out of a paper I was invited to write called 'The Discipline of Subversive Love', where I chose to examine ecumenism as subversive love. I presented this paper on 22 May 2010 and some of the issues arising are listed in a post two days ago.  This short series will present a more coherent exploration of the idea.  What exactly is subversive ecumenism?

Strong and Weak Christians

As a vegetarian of almost 25 years, I am alarmed to discover I am a weak Christian!  The problem for Paul, had nothing to do with factory farms and cruelty to animals, though.  He presumably would have had no problem with the characters in the picture, who are ordinary secular butchers (as far as I can tell!)

Of course, Paul, in Romans 14, is referring to those who believe that any activity connected with pagan temples is prohibited to Christians.  Reading this chapter I note three things of interest.

More thoughts about Subversive Ecumenism

The Sheffield Jesus Seminar drew about 30 people to its meeting, on 22 May 2010, mostly over thirty and lay people with teaching or preaching roles in the church.  It took place at St Mark's, Broomhill in Sheffield and so perhaps most were Anglican, with a sprinkling of Methodists and URC, and one Catholic.

The following are some of the issues that arose from my paper, presented at the meeting.  They represent the concerns of that particular group of people, who had an opportunity to reflect upon four other papers too.  So, whilst of interest, they do not necessarily relate directly to my paper.

The Discipline of Subversive Ecumenism

Towards the end of December I prepared a paper for the Sheffield Jesus Seminar, organised through the Urban Theology Unit and St Mark's, Broomhill.  I didn't get around to publishing it on this blog at the time.  The paper was in two parts.  The first was lifted from a post I made in April 2009, The First Commandment is One Commandment Not Three.  The paper I was asked to write for the seminar was called 'Jesus and the Discipline of Subversive Love' and I was offered the same passage as I had analysed in this post.

The Seminar took place on 22 May 2010 and I have only this week started to examine the results and I will in a future post pick up a few interesting issues that arose.  Five of us presented papers to about 30 people.  Then five groups spent 15 minutes with each author, so everyone got to comment on all the papers.

So, follow the above link for the first part of the paper and then read the following for the second part.

Fine Nets and Stratagems

This paper by Monsignor Mark Langham, Fine Nets and Stratagems, is a well written summary of the position of the Roman Catholic Church, with respect to their ecumenical work in Britain.

The paper is divided into three parts and I will summarise  what Langham is saying and my reaction to it.