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:
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.
I've been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and this sequence of posts (see below, beginning here, and there's one more after this) are inspired by this book. Taleb show us the limits to reason. The predictive power of reason is poorer than those who loudly promote reason claim.
This is no reason to abandon reason. The paradox is reason can show us its own limitations. Some theologians have of course known this all along.
So, what can't we know? We can't know the future. This is the nature of chaos theory, small incidents have big consequences. It's not that we can't observe the small causes; we don't know which ones are important. I see a butterfly flap its wings. I know this movement could in theory cause a hurricane on the other side of the world, but how can I prove it was this particular butterfly at that particular time? And what if the cause is the interaction between many butterflies?
We ignore non-linearities. This bothered me for years as a scientist. We use logarithms to turn non-linearities into linearities and so end up with a graph with a straight line. Nothing wrong with this, except we easily forget it isn't linear.
Ecumenical conversations are subject to the same issues. How can we be sure the rational debates of the theologians are taking us any closer to unity? How can we know the significant is not to be found amongst certain local churches, for example, rather than in the conversations between church leaders. Some local partnerships might have a massive impact on the future of the churches, but which ones?
Formal conversations can overlook the consequences of success. If the Church of England moves closer to the Roman Catholic Church, for example, what are the implications for its relationships with the Methodist and Reformed traditions? And of the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox, for that matter?
Christian unity is multi-factorial (just like everything else) and so cannot be approached in an entirely ordered way. The consequences of initiatives are always unpredictable. This is not to deny the positive achievements of formal conversations, they have established massive theological common ground.
It's the small things that keep tripping up the churches. The barriers to unity are not theological, they are about human beings and their organisations.
Self-awareness introduces control into creation. This may be the significance of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Whereas evolution proceeds with great freedom, once humanity became self-aware there was temptation to control its trajectory. This urge to control is known as sin.
And so we observe ideologies of control; people who seek to impose their understanding of perfection upon the world. This is sometimes known as platonification, after the philosopher Plato who argued everything is a reflection of perfect forms. We find it in the imposition of mathematical models on reality. Those Christians who insist nature has a designer are doing the same thing. Sadly, some formal ecumenical conversations have the same aim.
The material world self-organises and needs no designer. Design, whether of watches or of ideal societies (including united churches) is a result of self-awareness. It is this imposition of concepts of perfection onto the world, that we know as sin. This is because our concepts of perfection fall short of reality, miss the mark. Of course, imposition of perfection is in reality imposition of will, of a will to power, which can be seen in domestic abuse, warfare and all attempts to control others.
Design differs from evolution in its adherence to physical laws. The designer knows about the laws of thermodynamics, of gravity and various other physical constraints and uses those laws to power their machine or architecture. Life uses the same laws in different ways. Knock over a chair and it will stay where it is. Knock over a human being and they can get up under their own steam. Whilst no physical laws are broken, the motivation for life is much harder to understand than the mechanical principles of a machine or bureaucracy.
Contrary to the desire for power of creationists, chance is evidence of God, not design. Design demonstrates human intervention. What we see in nature is complexity, the interaction of chaos and order; the dynamic and the static. Complexity arises from matter's innate power to self-organise.
A commonplace objection to ecumenism is, unity means uniformity. The aim of ecumenism is to kill diversity. Here's a typical statement from a blog post by Harriet Baber, There's no point in interfaith:
Ecumenism as practised during the latter half of the 20th century and into the new millennium was not only wasteful: it was positively pernicious. In order to "draw closer in sacred things" it promoted liturgical uniformity. And this meant less choice for laypeople.
Let me make three points:
Superficially, it is true this has been the ecumenical endeavour, at least for certain Protestant churches.
Very few ecumenists understand this type of unity to be the goal of ecumenism
Many non-ecumenists would agree with this statement.
The problem is a failure of memory and imagination. We do not appreciate how deep divisions are or how valuable they are.
There is a failure of memory. Full visible unity has been successful but with the failure of the 1982 English Covenant, it was over as a goal. This was recognised in the Swanwick Agreement of 1989 but the Faith and Order debate has continued as if nothing has changed.
The narrow confines of Faith and Order work may seem comfortable and safe but does it remember the roots of our divisions or the nature of the progress that has already been made? As churches move closer, they find progress is slower. They are repelled as they realise their distinctions are of value.
And so we also need an imaginative practice, moving outside of formal conversations, which pictures a global church, united and diverse. In winter as the land covers in snow, it loses its distinctive features. The ecumenical spring will sharpen the landscape and many new flowers will bloom. For the winter we need clothing to help us, more than survive, revive out imagination.
The problem is the overwhelming sense of being in the right many people have when they believe they are in possession of God's truth.
This is understandable but enthusiasm for a single tradition betrays lack of faith (illustrated). Let us consider faith for a moment. No-one ever makes an enthusiastic response to the undoubted fact the sun will rise tomorrow. It's true, there's no denying it. But I don't need to persuade anyone of the fact.
However, where I'm not persuaded myself, I have to be enthusiastic. The claims I make for the truth of my beliefs compensate for my own doubts.
As confidence grows, so enthusiasm falls away. I can have confidence in the faith into which I have been formed within my own tradition. This is why formation is so important. Without formation, I will not grow in confidence and so remain absolute in my beliefs.
Christopher Jamieson writes in his book, 'Finding Sanctuary', about humility. Humility is not denial of truth but demonstrates growing confidence in it. It means I can listen to others without feeling threatened or getting angry. I find as I listen to others' views, I grow in faith within my own tradition.
Perhaps a weakness of mission is its failure to form its converts? If no tradition is offered, people have nothing to argue with, to learn from, to grow with. We cannot be reconciled with other traditions if we have no tradition of our own. We'll either be overwhelmed by the confidence of the other or seek to overwhelm them.
As the roots of our faith grow deeper into our own tradition, we are able to walk alongside members of other traditions, learn from them and possibly have something of value to pass onto them.
The idea of full visible unity has always been the primary vision of those involved in ecumenical work. The main alternative is sometimes called 'reconciled diversity' and it seems generally accepted this approach falls short of full visible unity. If the academic work has been done to fully assess reconciled diversity, I've never seen it or heard of it. The debate however appears to be closed.
The significance of Kim's book is, he makes the case for reconciliation rather than unity. It is interesting that he sets them up in opposition to one another. For Kim, unity and reconciliation are incompatible.
Why? Because unity is between leaders and is negotiated. It ignores legitimate diversity in an attempt to centralise authority.
Reconciliation is necessary where differences cannot be resolved and, according to Kim, we are left with the solidarity of the marginalised.
So, the challenge to ecumenists is not to find a solution that enables a single organisational approach to church. The task is to learn to love one another despite our differences.
I have written a great deal about the importance of relationships, of conversations as an end in themselves. Unity implies stasis, it implies it is possible to find a form of words to which all shall sign up and so unite the churches.
Reconciliation between marginalised people is inherently unstable. It implies the oneness of Christians will never be resolved because it is the act of loving despite differences that is important.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, The Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
In this series of short posts, I plan to consider in turn each of the readings in Churches Together in England's collection of Bible readings, One Light: One World. My aim is not to present a full exegesis but to ask what each text is saying about unity.
This is a core text for Christians and even more so for Jews. It is also highly formative for Islam. Given the immense amount of scholarship about this passage, what more can usefully be said?
God is one but does it follow from this that the church must be one? I do not see how church unity necessarily flows from the oneness of God.
I argued early in this blog that the mark of oikoumene is conversation. Conversations need at least two participants. So, the whole of creation is premised not upon unity but diversity. And indeed the Christian witness has always been to the diversity at the heart of divine unity in the Trinity.
The challenge is not to become one like God but to be reconciled despite our differences. Such reconciliation requires love of the one God but also immersion in the generative activity of God.
I wrote three posts about this era earlier this year and the first placed the Inter-church Process into its historical context. By 1985, the plans were advanced and the plan was to work through three phases.
Phase 1 was called Understandings of the Church and was to last throughout 1985 and until September 1986. It aimed:
To look closely at our understandings of the Church in the light of our common mission, from the point of view of the tradition and experience of each denomination, but also in the light of ecumenical experience and in relation to the existence of other denominations.
The objective was to find replies to a central question from local, national and international sources. The question was:
"In your tradition and experience, how do you understand the nature and purpose of your church, in relation to other Christian denominations and as together we share in God's mission to the world?"
At the local level, the aim was to engage local Christians to share their views together during Lent 1986. This would be 'nationally co-ordinated and locally devised'. This process would be supplemented by the views of those involved in local ecumenism and members of other local Christian Communities.
At national level, the national churches would be consulted and asked to produce a 2000 word response to the churches. This would be supplemented by the views of national bodies such as the Evangelical Alliance, other responsible secular, professional and non-Christian organisations, and major non-Christian faiths. This would be supplemented by work already completed.
At international level, the findings of multilateral and bilateral conversations would be collated and third world views obtained through church missionary organisations.
I summarised the results of this process in a recent post.
Phase II: Reflecting and Questioning Together, over the autumn and winter of 1986-7, aimed:
To promote prayer, reflection, and mutual questioning on the material produced in phase I in order to prepare for phase III.
This would be done at local, regional and national levels though meetings to discuss the material produced at phase 1. The expectation was ecumenical groups would make their own arrangements but the 'nature and purpose of the church' would also be the theme for the January 1987 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Phase III was Evaluation and Proposals for Action between the Spring and Autumn of 1987. It aimed:
To evaluate and assess this process of prayer, study and discussion in order to discern the way forward and to make proposals for the practical and organisational aspects of the churches' mission and unity, including the shaping of the ecumenical instruments needed for the future.
This would take place through a series of meetings. (1) Three meetings took place in England, Scotland and Wales within 10 days of each other, (2) a conference of 500 - 1000 participants in September 1987, (3) after September proposals would be considered by churches and other ecumenical bodies.
The vision did not have a narrow Faith and Order focus. In terms of content and its commitment to engage with all interested parties locally, nationally and internationally, the process showed a real vision for the whole church in the context of the wider world.
There was a genuine commitment to engage with local churches. Given the technology of the time, they achieved something that would be unthinkable now. It is amazing they were able to do all this 25 years ago. With blogs and social networking today, it would seem easier to undertake these wide-ranging conversations. In reality, this vision seems to have deserted the ecumenical movement and such a broad conversation seems impossible.
The document, Inter-Church Programme Proposals, looks forward to the Inter-Church Process of Lent 1986. The key question they hoped to address was: What is the Church and what is it for? The aim was to consult widely with church leaders, church members and church related organisations. After some brief speculations about how this question might be asked in terms of mission, God's Kingdom and God's final purpose for all, they write on page 5:
We might go on to ask whether our Churches might recognise each other as "other provisional embodiments of God's purposes". However, our hope in tackling these questions is not just to produce new documents, but to enable action to follow to change our standing in one another's eyes and our relationship to each other within the fellowship of Christ, so that together we might follow our common calling "in and for the world". And we shall also need to ask: What is the world saying to us? What is the Kingdom asking of us as Christians? What is the meaning of the Church in a secular society which sees no purpose for it?
Note the aim of this process was not restricted to unity. It was not unity for the sake of unity but for the wider benefit of the world. There is an expectation that things would change as a result of this initiative.
Our Churches' 'confessions' to one another of what we believe we are as churches, given both our varying size and the doctrinal, social, cultural and historical context of our life, will be placed 'on the table' for further use in the process. These are not envisaged as final, but as provisional responses, incorporating the viewpoints of those concerned with the Church's mission, evangelism, ministry and social responsibility, as well as those concerned with Faith and Order and with Christian unity. But they will be something new, in that we shall be saying how we see our own church in our overall perspectives, which will be encouraged by existing or new co-operation between us. This will lead us on to ask ourselves together: On what basis, and on what understanding of the Church can we move forward? And, out of this process, what shape might emerge for the ecumenical instruments needed to serve the Churches' common mission to the world?
Again it is clear that a vision of churches collaborating in a common relationship with the world was foundational to the Inter-Church Process. It struck me, following the January 2009 conference about receptive ecumenism, that receptive ecumenism needed to be accompanied by ecumenical reception and a third process I called transformative reception. This is where the churches together allow the world to form their mission and ministry. It is unsettling to find it current 25 years ago, given I found it necessary to reinvent it following that conference.
Again, I am forced to ask why it is, given the undoubted success of the Inter-Church Process, modern ecumenism stepped back into Faith and Order debates, losing its sense of commitment to the world?
It is interesting, reading Inter-Church Programme Proposals, from February 1985, to see how much has changed in the British ecumenical scene over the last 25 years. This is a short pamphlet written to outline the proposed Inter-Church Process, for Lent 1986.
Despite the failure of the English Covenant in 1982, the document is surprisingly upbeat, particularly in the light of the then recent visit of Pope John Paul II to Britain and the encouraging and supportive approach of the Roman Catholic Church at the time.
The Roman Catholic Bishops made a particular reference to the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, because it was there that a reappraisal of their understanding of the Church led Roman Catholics to a new relationship to other Churches and to the world, and to a new understanding of the churches' mission. Their stress on local ecumenism arises from their concern that church members locally should experience the 'creative dislocation' of ecumenical encounters which change our perception of our fellow-Christians and lead to a new awareness of our common mission. (Page 3)
This is an interesting paragraph for two reasons. Much of it resonates with current interest in ecumenical reception and receptive ecumenism. The warmth of the embrace of ecumenical dialogue by the Catholic Church is familiar through to this day, as is the emphasis on mission.
What strikes me though is the concept of 'creative dislocation', which seems to be a much more positive approach to local ecumenism than we find today. This is something I think we'll see as we explore the story of the Inter-Church Process: a much more positive view of local ecumenism.
One of the questions I hope to address is, why has the commitment to local ecumenism become dulled over the last quarter century? The Inter-Church Process was a success by any measure, so why is there so much scepticism today? It is as if church leaders wish to protect local churches from 'creative dislocation' rather than encourage it.
Consultancy for Mission and Ministry This should take you to details of the Consultancy for Mission and Ministry course at the York Insititute. See my post about non-directive consuultancy around 9 September 2009.
Image via Wikipedia
Recent Comments