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Sometimes it is important to examine our assumptions. One such assumption is no ecumenical activity can be justified if it does not support the mission of the church. This seems to be accepted by all the traditions.
Perhaps one reason is the centenary of the the Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference. If the modern ecumenical movement started with that conference, mission and unity have always been two dimensions of the same activity. Later in the twentieth century, the Life and Work and then the Faith and Order movements started and so perhaps mission and unity had less prominence for a while.
There is a perception ecumenism and mission have become separate movements. While the celebration of Edinburgh 1910 had its official (sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC)) conference in Edinburgh in June (Edinburgh 2010), a much larger Cape Town 2010 conference in October, was sponsored by the Lausanne movement.
The first Lausanne Congress was in 1974 and marked a split in the ecumenical movement, or at least the Protestant part of it. The supporters of the Lausanne Covenant (formulated in 1974), founded in this country the Evangelical Alliance. This evangelical movement is an alternative ecumenical movement, open to all Christians. It operates independently of the movement supporting the World Council of Churches.
Although some churches belong to both movements, it is a significant split that is only slowly being healed. One encouraging event, is the WCC General Secretary addressed Cape Town 2010, for the first time.
We must not make the mistake of thinking these two movements are split along the lines of mission and unity. Just as the Lausanne movement is ecumenical in nature, so the Councils of Churches / Churches Together movement focuses on mission. Local Ecumenical Partnerships, which today are understood to be formal organisational structures, were a few decades ago the equivalent of today's Fresh Expressions. Indeed, it may be argued in their explicit linkage of mission and unity, they set a better example than some mission projects, where unilateral initiatives or initiatives that bypass established churches are not questioned.
In my next post I will say a bit more about evangelical ecumenism before I go on to highlight what I understand to be the weakness of the mission and unity model.
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