Exploring Ecumenism

The World Belongs to the Lord

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world.  If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts.  This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Psalm 24: 1-2

It is interesting to compare the first line in the NRSV version with the paraphrase in Churches' Together in England's title (above).  'The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it'.  The word 'belongs' implies ownership, as if the world is God's property.  To say the earth is the Lord's implies it is the Lord's in the sense that a work of art is the artist's.  If I buy a Picasso it is mine but the painting is still his.

One point I have made many times is, ecumenism is a part of the wider Oikoumene, which stands for the reconciliation of all things to God.  The world is God's and God calls to all created things.  Evolution is their response to God's call.

In what sense is this world God's?  There's not a lot to go on in this particular text.  The focus is not on God designing animals and plants but in setting the parameters of seas and rivers.  Perhaps the image is of God the theatre owner, who maintains the theatre in order that others might put on plays?  There might be a tendency to forget the theatre owner's work at the final curtain.

The Lord Encompasses All

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world.  If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts.  This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Isaiah 40: 21-26

This is about God's power and yet it is interesting to look at how it is exercised. 

Before I do that, it is important to remember the writers of this text had a different cosmology to the Newtonian one most of us cling to despite the massive changes that have taken place in physics over the last century, sometimes referred to as quantum mechanics.

These changes in cosmology are not necessarily a problem.  They have happened before during the history of Christianity and do not invalidate the main points of the Jewish and Christian faiths. 

At first glance, in this passage we have an all powerful God who exercises power over creation.  But look closer, there is nothing about design - God sits above, stretches the heavens, makes rulers as nothing, brings out the host, numbers them.  Just about anything but design.

This powerful God certainly interacts with creation, sometimes in ways which might not be welcomed.  But this is not a God who is in control. 

God lays the foundations; creates the environment in which creation evolves.  God asks questions of God's creation.  They are rhetorical questions, that draw attention to God.  God is saying, don't lose yourself in creation, can't you see there is more to it than your immediate environment? 

It is a call to transcend where we are and seek something else entirely.  Is this the same call heard by atoms and molecules as they form the first life?  The same call as that heard by single cells as they become multi-cellular? 

The call is to know God.  Things evolve, according to our modern cosmology, in order to discover God.

Similar questions are asked of human beings and various faith traditions have evolved to help those who will listen encounter God. 

It Was Very Good

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world.  If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts.  This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Genesis 1:26-31

I have written a great deal in this blog about evolution and there is more to come!  If we understand conversation to be a primary act, then we need to see it in all things; the conversations between churches are but one example. 

The views of creationists and neo-Darwinians focus on the idea of design. I find this a static and unhelpful understanding of evolution.  Design implies the sort of effort a human being puts into making a watch.  It has a purpose and designs for watches (or bicycles or cars or computers) are largely convergent, we soon learn what works and so continue to design along similar lines.  When we look at the design of a watch we see geometrical shapes, which we cannot see anywhere in a kitten, for example.

I prefer to think in terms of a conversation.  Evolution is an ongoing conversation at many levels between living organisms and their environment.  The theist might wish to add to that conversations between God and the material world.  I've no time to explore this further but will return to it in the future I am sure.

Verse 31, seems to be evidence of this.  God speaks earlier in the narrative and now God sees the effects of his words; how has creation responded?  If God were the all-powerful designer, as neo-Darwinists seem to imagine, why would God need to look?  Creation would be perfect because it had been designed by a perfect designer.  These words 'it was very good' seem to be God's judgement on a creation that is not essentially predictable because it has freedom to grow and develop in its own way.

We are in danger of thinking God has a design for the church.  But if the liberation of the Holy Spirit is real there cannot be a design; we are free to develop our relationships as we see fit.  The spirit calls us to base relationships on love and they grow out of love not some heavenly prescribed design

one light: one world

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Some time ago I promised to comment upon the texts in the Churches Together in England publication, one light: one world.  This link will take you to a free download of the volume.  I hope as a Lent discipline to complete the task.  There are actually more texts than there are days in Lent, so I will plod on until I complete the task.

Last time I completed three texts and they can be found as follows:

1. The Lord Our God is One
2. The only Lord
3. God's Faithfulness Surrounds You

The aim of this series will be to test some of the ideas I have written about in this blog against scripture.  This is not an exercise in proof texting but an attempt to dialogue with scripture.  These texts have been selected to illustrate what scripture says about unity.  My question is whether they are incompatible with an emphasis on diversity and the primary act of conversation.  The three initial posts above all observe the oneness of God need not necessarily imply the churches need be one, especially if by being one we mean structural unity.

My hope is of course that by entering into dialogue with scripture I won't prove anything so much as be challenged to develop my ideas about the importance of conversation further.

I will aim to post one a day if I can.  March in particular is a manic month and so excuse me if there are a few gaps!

I will not normally copy out the texts as they can be found in the download or any Bible.  The version used by Churches Together in England is the New RSV.