Exploring Ecumenism: Conversations

Conversations Between Faiths

This is the sixth in a series of posts about ecumenical formation.

I have deliberately focused this blog on ecumenism within the Christian faith. There are a number of reasons for this but primarily my focus has been on Christianity and that is how I decided to organise my work.

However, this blog is also about conversation and in that sense it is fully inclusive of conversations between faiths. Christians have a unique message, which is forever getting lost amongst a lot of other material, and our role is simply to tell people what it is. It is not about conversion, although it seems to happen sometimes, or about policing people's morals. It is simply to tell the story.

I attend a small local interfaith group and this year we have been looking at the scriptures of various faiths. In May it was the turn of the Jains. So, let's start there.

Something clicked when I heard the Jain scriptures started as a library in North West India. My first thought was that I had heard this at earlier sessions about other faiths (more in later posts) and my second thought was, this library would have contained all the knowledge in the world.

That is what libraries were, collections of all the knowledge in the world. We live in a world where access to knowledge is easy. We can read. We can travel to visit libraries easily and these days access masses of information on the Internet.

What was important though was not this one library. It was all the libraries, scattered around the world, each containing all the knowledge in the world. Most of them are now lost. Interfaith conversations were not a leisure pursuit for indolent westerners, but an essential exchange of ideas.

It is this idea from the meeting about the Jains that has led to this series of posts about formation. An understanding of faith not as a series of beliefs so much as a series of libraries, each containing all the knowledge in the world.

Posted at 08:00 PM in Conversations, Formation, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

What is Formation?

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So, what is formation? In this fourth in this series, I will tease out some strands.

First a few things to clear the ground. Formation is not the sole responsibility for the ordained. They may have a formal obligation to see to the formation of those over whose care they have some reponsibility. However, the reponsibility is everyone's and we are all responsible for each others' formation.

Formation is something everyone experiences. Some may be gifted and some not even know what the word means but in principle it is accessible to all. The Methodist publication, Time to Talk of God, a few years ago, made this point. Anyone can talk about God.

Formation is a mutual activity. It is something people can share in. It is not about someone who knows, pouring insights into the minds of others. It is mutual learning. Christian traditions are not programmes of belief to be systematically worked through; they are guides, resources, help, something to draw upon.

Consequently, sharing between Christians of different traditions makes a valuable contribution to mutual formation because it enables sharing of insights from different parts of the tradition. This is sometimes called receptive ecumenism.

Furthermore, without mutual sharing, there is a danger that a tradition will go out on a limb. If we are to engage with others from outside the faith, we must learn from each other something of what our faith is.

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Mission and Spiritual Direction

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In this third in the series about formation, I will explore the relationship between mission and formation. I made the point a few months ago that the traditional view of mission and unity is incomplete and the third element of spiritual direction needs to be included. In the following post, I started to explore something of the diversity of approaches to formation across the traditions.

Whatever we believe mission is, it must not be an activist pursuit. We need a praxis of mission that includes formation. However, ecumenists tend to focus on mission at the expense of formation.

A good evangelist will always be an excellent spiritual director. John Wesley is respected for his spiritual direction as much as for his evangelism. If you don't understand spirituality, how can you possibly be an evangelist? I suppose you can frighten people with lurid images of hellfire. But the reality is people are already exploring faith and they are looking for answers, not threats.

The forums where atheists debate with Christians can be frustrating. Anyone taking part must be seeking faith at some level. What do they find? People who have answers, mostly to the wrong questions. The person who will be most helpful is the one who listens and answers the questions being asked. But more than that, direction is to some degree a joint exploration. A seasoned explorer knows the terrain although not every particularity.

So, formation starts before conversion, it has something to do with the context within which mission take place. It is in conversations where believer and unbeleiver explore the terrain together. And continues throughout Christian life, informing the practice of everyone involved in mission. Mission is nothing without formation.

Mission requires many skills, drawing on analysis, organising, planning and implementation of programmes. But the effective stuff happens in the unplanned interstices, the places where the real conversations take place. Ultimately, mission aims to increase the chance of conversations taking place.

So, if churches are to do anything together they need to get formation right.

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Agree with One Another; Live in Peace

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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.

2 Corinthians 13: 11 - 31

These are the final lines to a letter, summarising what has gone before. The Corinthians were a community divided primarily by wealth; they are the ones who split around various leaders. Hence they are told 'agree with one another'.

I doubt this worked at the time. Paul could hardly tell them to disagree! But in reality it is very difficult for Christians to agree. Wesley covered this in 'The Catholic Spirit' and I've written about it in a previous post.

It isn't always possible to agree with other Christians. Various groups of Christians believe things that are mutually exclusive. Do I believe one thing when with one group and another with a second?

We need to find some means to live together in love and peace; life lived according to the grace of God, in peace.

Indeed it is 'love and peace' that is really significant. Most of Paul's letters begin and / or end with 'love and peace' and this was a revelation at the time. This is what marks out the Christian community from other communities. For the Romans, peace was through victory rather than love.

And that's the point. If I set out to win the argument, the best I can hope for is peace through victory. Somehow our calling is to find peace through love. It can't be simply agreeing with others for the sake of a quiet life. This implies the community needs to find a consensus of some sort. It cannot mean we all agree with the most powerful.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Conversations, Exegesis, Mutuality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The Greatest of These is Love

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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.

1 Corinthians 12: 31; 13: 1 - 13

What is there to say about this passage? The main point is lesser gifts such as prophecy, tongues, understanding will pass away. Only faith, hope and love will remain.

We can conclude, amongst the things which will pass away, are our various traditions. I think of traditions as stepping stones. They are something we use to move us towards a final destination. You don't stop on one stone forever. If you did, you would block the progress of people behind you.

Note this in no way denies the necessity for stepping stones. But their purpose is temporary . They are a means of communication between two sides of a river. Our churches are a means of communication between this life and a life of faith, hope and love.

The challenge then is to use them properly, so others are helped, not hindered, by our activities. We do not need more than one set of stones to cross over and any set will do.

The analogy breaks down when we consider sharing between traditions but at least we can see users of other stones as travellers on the same journey. Travellers who can share notes, tips and tricks.

Posted at 06:00 PM in Conversations, Ecclesiology, Exegesis | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

For Building Up the Body of Christ

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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.

Ephesians 4: 7, 11 - 16

This builds on the previous passage. The point of disciplined listening and sharing is to attain maturity and the full stature of Christ. Note unity here is not something imposed through church structures but something which grows from genuine sharing of faith (v13).

The experience of unity flows from sharing between Christians of different traditions. In such sharing we learn of the ways we are deceived by our doctrines, tricks and schemes.

And as we overcome out delusions we find the body is joined and knitted together. The body builds itself up in love.

One problem ecumenists have is ecumenical reception. The councils of the churches make an agreement but have difficulty passing it on to local churches. The problem is where a formal agreement is imposed on others not party to it.

It is no surprise formal conversations have had a high degree of success. Of course they have. When Christians get together and share they will find common ground. The problems start when successful leaders impose their findings on others.

The body builds itself in love.

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He Has Broken Down the Dividing Wall

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.

Ephesians 2: 13 - 22

In this passage, the author describes the church as a place of reconciliation. Recently I have indulged in some negative descriptions of the institutional church and this passage is an opportunity to consider the church in a more positive light.

Our primary experience of church is the institutions and this has advantages and disadvantages. What we are invited to do here, is to perceive the church behind the institutions. Fundamentally, church is not an insititution but an event. It is where people who are otherwise divided are able, through Jesus Christ,to be reconciled.

The 1986 Inter-church Process was known as 'Not Strangers but Pilgrims' (see verse 19) and this vision of the church being somehow bigger than or behind the institutional expressions of church, was how many understood it.

People united in Christ is evidence of the glory of God. It is the breaking down of the walls our institutions create that shows us the power of God. Church institutions might point to the apostles, prophets and Jesus as the foundation of their particular version of the way but what is important is where the divisions created by the institutions disappear.

The dynamic of reconciliation generates a sense of the glory of God. As others are reconciled in a widening circle, as humanity is able to extend and deepen conversation across religious and political divides, we see the reality of God's intervention in the world.

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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.

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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.

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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