Exploring Ecumenism

Participative Conversations

This is where I introduce a new theme, participation; a one word answer to the question, 'how should we conduct our ecumenical conversations?'. 

Participation is a major topic, with hundreds of websites and books about it.  And yet, in almost any church mention of participation, is likely to be met with incomprehension.  There are a few notable exceptions; for instance, some fresh expressions are exploring the use of participation.  I suspect this is happening where younger people are encountering participative methods in other walks of life and expect to find it in their religious life too.

Too many religious leaders start with the implicit assumption they have all the answers.  Many of them do have answers and some of their answers are very good answers; until they encounter the problem of reception.  People do not buy into their ideas, they remain sceptical or ignore the debates.  The famous symptom of this is the idea it is somehow wrong to bring politics into church.

Sometimes there may be consultation, where church members are graciously permitted to discuss something that has already been decided before they give it their consent.  So, we see the great debates, sometimes in the eyes of the media, where a major council of a church has to choose between a prescribed solution, rejection of the same solution and either way threats of schism.

There are of course honourable exceptions.  In the Catholic tradition, there is the practice of discernment.  The Quakers' search for the spirit of the meeting, may be a related approach to discernment. 

But it is time the leadership of all the traditions took a long hard look at how they make decisions.  How many really make the effort to take all relevant information on board?  How many trust their people?  How many listen to them, involve them and genuinely believe this is something worth doing? 

I believe God speaks to us as communities, not individuals.  The will of God for us is discerned through our conversations.  And that is conversations that are generative.  If we want to do this, we need to learn the skills.  A new 'Participation' category to this blog will explore these skills.

Last Saturday we ran a day workshop called 'Participation in Church'.  About 30 people attended from all over the country and we simply discussed what participation means or might mean for us in our churches.  It was a mix of several traditions, including some fresh expressions and other new independent churches.

This file is a brochure we produced in advance of the day, it includes a brief introduction to participative methods.

Download ParticiaptioninChurch-summary

Less Ecumenism, more Oikoumene

Throughout this blog I have contrasted the words ecumenism and oikoumene.  I use the English word in the narrow sense of relations between churches, whilst the Greek I use to mean the wider reconciliation of the whole cosmos to God.

When we consider the content, the 'What?' of ecumenical conversations, it is hard for me to resist the call of this wider subject area.  Indeed, oikoumene is the topic of transformational reception, my third dimension of ecumenical conversations.

Of course, what I can't resist is easily resisted by most ecumenists.  Usually ecumenical conversations are about the churches.  How churches differ and how they might change to accommodate each other.  This accounts for many of the difficulties modern ecumenism is encountering.  Most people are voting with their feet because they no longer see the point.

We face a time in the early twentieth century something like the Edwardian era in the last century.  It was a logical continuation of the Victorian era, brought to an abrupt end in 1914.  Similarly, we have seen a growth in wealth, primarily but lately not exclusively in the West, which has continued throughout my life, effectively since the end of the second world war.  We all know it cannot go on for ever.  So far our political leadership has kept up the pretense that we can continue with business as usual.  More people learn each day that all of us are living a lie.  So, now what?

Let's face it the churches have colluded with the politicians.  The call of transformational reception is to address this wider oikoumene, to bring the inherited wealth and wisdom of our traditions to bear upon what is happening to humanity.  The contribution ecumenism can make to oikoumene is to bring more than one approach to bear.  Through ecumenical conversations, we have all learned much more of our own and others traditions, let's use that knowledge for the benefit of all.

Does this mean I'm advocating the abandonment of our formal talks?  Not exactly.  What we need to do is recognise that our traditions do not stay the same, what we see as the same tradition 100 years ago is significantly different to the tradition we know today.  Why do traditions change?  Because of their encounter with the world, the wider oikoumene.   

Now we have an opportunity to move forward together.  A complex interplay of traditions entering into a complex exchange with the wider world.  This is God's call to God's churches, to respond to his call to move onto the wider oikoumene.

Who should take part in Ecumenical Conversations?

So, yesterday I answered the question, why conversations?  Conversations are not just playing with words, they are at their best generative of something new.  We will return to this many times but it is worth asking to what extent ecumenical conversations are generative of something new.

Over the next few days I want to address three similar questions.  We have covered 'why?', the next is 'who?'. Following on their will be 'what?' and 'how?'. 

So, who should take part in ecumenical conversations?  In today's ecumenical movement, it is hard to escape the sense that it is the formal talks that count.  The idea seems to be that you place your best theologians at the centre, and they meet with best theologians of other traditions.  Once they agree it is taken for granted the traditions are in agreement.

This leaves aside the question of ecumenical reception.  Why should local churches, perhaps thousands of them accept what has been decided, often behind closed doors?  This is compounded by the problems these centralised talks get into.  It is often difficult for local churches to understand why the centre has got to where it has. 

I once sat through a fascinating conversation about the shape of the table for these talks.  Apparently, if it is a round table it sends out a different message to a square one.  Maybe it does, after all round tables do have advantages over square or rectangle ones; as a person who is hard of hearing I'm all for round tables.  But if the usual people are sat around the round table, does it make any difference?  Precious little in my view.

If we are to make progress, then conversations at all levels of the churches have to be regarded as of equal value.  Obviously it is in the nature of things that some conversations will go better than others, so what I mean is that we should not expect the answers we're seeking to come solely out of central conversations - everyone has a contribution to make and has a similar interest in the outcome.

There are two immediate problems people will have with this.  First, not everyone can be trusted with the niceties of the theological debate.  Truth is not determined by the majority but is perhaps determined by the few who are right.  I'm not suggesting a free-for-all.  Any group of Christians undertaking serious conversations have to start where their churches are, not where they would like them to be.  They must be challenged to engage with the reality of where they are.  This objection boils down to a lack of trust the leadership has in the majority of Christian people.  This problem isn't with the people, it is with the leaders.

The other problem is if there are hundreds of conversations, how can we keep track of them all?  There are a few methods that can be employed, some used by growing movements across the world addressing issues such as climate change.  I will explore these later.  The other big change is the rise of Web2.  The use of blogging software, can enable conversations not only on line but also through posting of in the flesh conversations.  

Does this mean we don't need leaders?  No, it doesn't.  We need new leadership skills to enable conversations to take place freely but mindful of the real issues facing the traditions.  We also will still need academics, particularly those able to undertake empirical research of qualitative data.  It should keep them going for a while! 

A Taxonomy of Conversations

Yesterday I wrote 'This is not an end to ecumenical conversations but a fundamental change to the way we conduct conversations'.  Today, I will introduce a 'taxonomy of listening' although I think it is more appropriately thought of as a taxonomy of conversation. 

It is from Adam Kahane's solving tough problems and is also described in Presence, pages 74f.  At this stage I want to briefly review each of the four types of conversation.  More detail will follow later.  See pages 91 -92 and beyond of Kahane's book for more information.

1. The first kind of conversation is downloading.  This is where we listen from within our own story and consequently hear only what supports it.  I wish I could say this approach to conversation were absent from our churches.  I suppose it is a bad habit of highly creative and motivated people.  As a local preacher I am challenged to ask myself how I can get beyond this type of conversation in my services.
2. Next comes debating.  This is where we listen from outside, dispassionately weighing evidence.  It is a marked improvement on downloading.  It requires the debaters to think about what they are saying and what the other person is saying.  It is a gateway to types three and four because it requires listening to others and marshaling our arguments to meet theirs.  The problem is that like downloading it admits of nothing new.  This is why so many debates go on for years because neither side can ultimately hear what the other is saying.
3. Reflection is where we listen from inside and hear ourselves reflexively and others with empathy.  This is where receptive ecumenism displays great potential.  It invites traditions to try on the insights of other traditions and see if they might work for them.  It invites a more subjective understanding of unfamiliar traditions. 
4. Generative dialogue is where we hear not just ourselves and others but also the whole system.  We see ourselves within the whole; the role we play for good or ill.  This can be highly motivating when people experience it together.  Once in conversation with a Quaker, I was told most firmly that Friends do not make decisions by consensus.  Consensus still means people come to the meeting with arguments prepared.  Friends seek the Spirit of the meeting, I was told, the new insight that changes everything.  I agree, generative dialogue is where we encounter the Spirit of God.

The Process and Content of Ecumenical Conversations

A few years ago there was a craze for wearing wristbands with the initials 'WWJD?'.  What Would Jesus Do?  This was not something I found particularly helpful but upon reflection it did seem to me they were asking the wrong question.  A wristband with the reminder 'HWJDI?' might be more helpful.  How Would Jesus Do It?. 

If any of my non-existent readers have been wondering, in their hypothetical way, why this blog is different from most writings about ecumenism, here is my answer.  It is different because my interest in ecumenism is more about process than content.  Usually, ecumenists write about the differences between traditions and the content of conversations aims to reconcile these differences.  My interest is in how these conversations are conducted.

Obviously form and content are not independent.  The way we conduct our conversations will affect content and indeed content will determine process.  Where mindsets are about control, typical of many traditionalist approaches, then it is not surprising that the way conversations are conducted is also about control.

Each to their own I suppose, but it does seem to me this top-down approach to ecumenism accounts for the much reported stalling of modern ecumenism.  In my experience ecumenism is dead amongst people aged under 30 (or is it under 40?). 

I've done a lot of reading today and lost track where I read something I jotted down on a post-it note - so apologies to whoever wrote it.  It went something like this: '...not theological dialogue in isolation but in lived and growing communion in the life and mission on the part of the whole people of God'. 

This is another example of the lived vision I have been writing about recently.  If we are moving to a new ecumenical paradigm it has to be through this type of lived vision.  This is not an end to ecumenical conversations but a fundamental change to the way we conduct conversations. 

Control comes out of a non-biblical fixation on rules or morality.  Living vision, or faith, does not need rules or people to enforce them.  The ability to live according to love comes through the Christian community, people seeking perfection together. 

Wesley was able to leave his societies, classes and bands to meet and act as spiritual directors to each other because in the main they were able to do it.  Yes, in the main, does mean they needed some help and this leads us to ask what kind of leaders Christian communities need.

They are leaders who are there not to police or control but to ensure that process does not fall into the hands of those who want to police and control.  Who are those people who want to control?  They are all of us; people like me.  Control is not always in the hands of priests; we are all prone to thinking we know better than the Spirit.  This is why we need to learn more about conversations; to understand how good conversations free us from the need to control.

Ecumenism and the U model

There are plenty of precedents for schism in the history of Christian churches.  Falling out over matters of doctrine is always a possibility where our primary focus is on preserving doctrinal insights from the past.  The Presence U model encourages us to focus on the future, on new insights to the faith we have yet to experience.

About a week ago, I started to explore the U model and how it might relate to the Christian faith.  Today, I want to look at how it might help us understand the ecumenical task.

I don't want to forget the many achievements ecumenism has made over the years.  In the UK relationships between the mainstream traditions are very positive.  There is at present a level of positive work together unthinkable before the second world war.  There have been major steps forward, most prominently the Methodist Deed of Union in 1932 and the formation of the United Reformed Church in 1972.  Around the world there are several United or Uniting Churches. 

One problem is that we may be victims of this success.  This success suggests that full visible unity is achieved by uniting churches.  This is achieved through formal talks that aim to resolve differences between churches, so they can move towards formal unity.  Indeed these churches can claim a significant degree of success.  Advances in understanding has done much to remove the suspicion between churches.  The remaining problems are I think these:

1. There remain many significant churches outside of formal ecumenism.  In the UK a major split is between the ecumenical instruments such as Churches Together in Britain and Ireland or Churches Together in England on the one hand and the Evangelical Alliance (EA) on the other.  The EA is a much larger organisation than the mainstream ecumenical instruments, at least in terms of staff.  I suspect there are many churches that are outside the EA too.  These will include Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical Churches that choose to be completely independent.  Also, BME (black and minority ethnic) churches, some of which are 'home grown' and others branches of of movements from overseas.  There are also smaller house churches and fresh expressions which for one reason or another do not join wider organisations.  How meaningful would full visible unity be if it excluded some or all of these churches?
2. Formal conversations are often said to help participants understand their own tradition better.  The downside of this from the point of full visible unity is that as our own tradition becomes clearer we find more obstacles to unity!  Certainly ecumenism can come over sometimes as defensive of traditions, rather than a willingness to make the first move towards unity.
3. Not everyone involved in mainstream ecumenism shares the objective of full visible unity. 
4. For some a movement through bilateral conversations towards one tradition is a move further from another.  For example, women bishops will help the Church of England in its search for unity with the Methodist Church but distances it further from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
5. Even where agreements have been made through formal conversations, they are not always acceptable to local churches.  This is not always expressed through forthright resistance, but sometimes by simply ignoring the agreements.

All of these factors and possibly more account for a sense of stuck-ness amongst the churches in the UK.  The churches have had the dialogues and are even contemplating conversations where they try on the shoes of other traditions as it were, through receptive ecumenism.  But trying new things works only when old assumptions are set aside.

Vision according to Presence is not just words, it is something that is discovered in the future by being acted out now.  To perceive something new the churches must find a new route based upon trust and faith.  They must trust one another and have faith that by stepping out together they will discover a new ecumenical vision.  I have called this dimension of ecumenism transformative reception.

Conversation between a Christian and a Secular Model

Over the last few days I have been comparing the Presence U model with the ancient hymn in Philippians chapter 2.  In this post I want to take a step back and ask to what extent this is a legitimate exercise.  I don't think I'm going to be able to come to a conclusive argument either way but I think it is important in any theological work to reflect on the methods deployed.

I have already stated several times that I do not think the U model and the hymn are the same thing.  They are images of each other and whilst I don't think it is even desirable to reduce them to a single process, it may be helpful to allow them to inform each other.

There is no copyright on the U shape.  The pattern of death and resurrection can be found in many faiths.  Indeed, Christian mission would be more difficult if this were not the case.  This congruence between faiths allows for the exploration of common ground.  Theologians and missiologists call this inculturation.

The U model was devised for use in businesses by people asking how they might meet the challenges of climate change.  It is not a religious exercise, although it has religious connotations.  This in itself is an opening for conversations about matters of faith. 

However, we should be aware that it is possible the U model might consciously or unconsciously have been influenced by Christian theology.  In places the book resonates with allusions to gospel material.  None of the authors in their biographies lay claim to a Christian faith although it is hard to imagine they have been shielded entirely from its influences growing up in the United States.  But these images are a part of our culture.  Anyone exploring matters of psychology, spirituality or philosophy is likely to encounter them.

We should also be mindful of Missio Dei, where it is understood the spirit of God goes before us into communities (similar to if not the same as Wesley's 'prevenient grace').  The issues facing us are so severe say the authors they cannot identify any power other than business able to effect the necessary changes.  In terms of how God may be working through humanity to mitigate climate change, it is not impossible that businesses have a crucial part to play in it, especially considering their role in causing it.

So, let me try to summarise the mutual advantage of an interplay between these movements.  It seems to me that Presence is a timely reminder to the churches of the power of conversations to effect change.  They offer us an opportunity to recall how the spirit transforms our values and helps us work collaboratively for the welfare of humanity and the whole cosmos.  In return, the Christian faith offers a challenge to Presence - is it likely that setting aside our assumptions and picking up new ones is enough?  Sooner or later the challenge will be to make material sacrifices.  Certainly it is apparent current global financial systems cannot last if they are to be fair and far less exploitative of the enviromment.  This implies a move towards a mutual approach to economics.  This will require a spiritual change which seems to go beyond what Presence has experienced so far.

Sensing and Incarnation

So, let's consider the left hand side of the eschatological rollercoaster.  Presence describes this movement, from the top left to bottom of their U model, 'sensing'.  To me the U model as a whole seems to bear some resemblance to the pastoral cycle.  They argue that 'Most change efforts ... don't move very far "down the U" because little deeper sensing occurs' (page 88). 

The point Presence is making is that it is easy to gather information without challenging our habitual ideas; that 'confirms preexisting assumptions'.  We will see only what we are prepared to see.  The aim is to get beyond that, to suspend our expectations and even then we might not see our own connection to what is there.

If I am right and the U model owes something to the Philippians hymn, it will be because the hymn has been present in Western culture for 2000 years.  In my last post I pointed out that in the downward movement, Jesus lets go of everything from being God, through being human, to slavery, to death, to the cross.  It is impossible to get any lower.

Why do this?  It is learning through humility, by abandoning what we hold dear we are forced to face our own responsibility for the mess we find ourselves in.  This is the path of humility, of setting aside our power and encountering the raw situation we are in.  It is embracing our own complicity in the human condition.  And Jesus did this too.  He lost everything, even God.  On the cross he hit rock bottom, there was nowhere else to go.

This is of course the doctrine of incarnation (and of course Wesley's doctrine of original sin or prevenient grace - but more of that later).  We encounter it in some teachings about prayer.  This is not the sort of prayer that asks for things, but the sort of prayer that incarnates the one who prays, in the sense that they see things as they are.

Remember high church, Tory John Wesley who was radicalised as he traveled up and down the country and saw the reality of the industrial poor for himself.  Remember, the ways in which most Christian traditions seem to find their way into the inner city.  From Catholic or Anglo-Catholic retreat houses through to small intentional communities, associated with the Urban Theology Unit in the 1970s and 80s, and with evangelical fresh expressions in the 2000s. 

You cannot see this if you are an academic theologian because theology is about the specific, as soon as you start to generalise it becomes effectively irrelevant to the majority of Christians.  This is the big problem ecumenists in formal talks face, or perhaps too often do not face.  I will write much more about this.

Learning from the Future

The question according to Presence is how we avoid applying old frameworks to new realities (page 84).  Their approach is through learning from a certain type of conversation. 

Wesley's theology of The New Creation, is based on a cosmology of the future.  He contrasted the Calvinist emphasis on creation in the past, where God created the universe just so and we are called to uphold God's standards, with his own emphasis where God has planned a new creation through transformation.

Presence describes a type of learning where we learn from the future.  Here we discover our part in bringing the future to pass.  Learning from the past is helpful where the past is a guide to the future.  But issues such as climate change and the recent credit crunch have no precedents (page 86).  'New wine, new wineskins'. 

At this point Presence introduces its U theory.  I haven't been able to find the diagram on the net, so imagine a U shape.  There are three stages as we move through sensing in the top left, presencing in the bottom and realising in the top right.  I will explore these in the next few posts using the ancient hymn Paul quotes in Philippians 2:5-11.

Inter-generational Ecumenical Conversations

When we consider ecumenical reception it is easy to assume that it is an activity entirely within churches; indeed that is how I have presented it so far (see especially the second subheading at this link).  Today I want to suggest that this dimension of ecumenical conversation is somewhat more complex.

It is easy to think that ecumenical reception is simply advocating the outcomes of formal conversations between church leaders to local churches.  I have already stated several times that I think this view is flawed unless it is seen as a conversation.  But there is a further flaw in this one way view, and that is to see the conversation as solely between church authorities and local churches.

I think there is also a need for reception between young and old.  Of course, this is not about old people, who enjoy traditional church activities imposing their preferences on the young.  There is a real need for conversations between young and old for the following reasons:

• on a basic level younger people tend to practise different styles of worship to older people, and indeed different Christian lifestyles
• there is far less adherence to a particular tradition amongst younger people in Britain, many younger people 'shop around' and attend a church in their locality that feels right, and will change tradition when they move to a new neighbourhood
• this is also a trend from neighbourhood based congregations to congregations based around shared interests, or demographic groups
• there is a trend to new styles of congregations, eg evangelical, charismatic and pentecostal churches, house churches or fresh expressions
• traditional ecumenism is seen as something older people do in mainstream churches, and new traditions are seen as inherently ecumenical

We are certainly considering people under 30 here and possibly people under 40.  In other words this new take on ecumenism (which has strengths and weaknesses) will one day be a majority view, ecumenism will change beyond recognition.

Conversations of this type whilst primarily within traditions may also have an element of receptive ecumenism (between traditions) because the goal will be mutual enrichment, a learning from the history of the older traditions and the new discoveries amongst the new.

One last thought.  Are there other sorts of conversation within traditions?  There may be a geographical conversation needed, eg between south and north in England.  That's all I've thought of so far but there will almost certainly be others.