Exploring Ecumenism

Ecumenism and Culture

Image via Wikipedia

This is not a topic I know a great deal about and so I'm preparing this post as a request for help tracking down material for future exploration. 

Usually we think of ecumenism as an exercise in ecclesiology.  We seek unity between churches, denominations or traditions.  This is a formal approach to unity.  It involves negotiated agreements between traditions. 

My question: does culture have a role creating divisions or supporting unity between Christians? 

Inculturation is the process whereby cultures that pre-exist the arrival of the Christian message, take it on board.  Traditional missionary activity perhaps tried to introduce western traditions into places.  Today the focus is upon cultures interpreting the faith in their own way, although I suspect this is something of a generalisation.

Does culture simplify or complicate the quest for unity?  If our major divisions are between the continents, so Anglicans on one shore have more in common with Catholics on the same shore than they have with Anglicans an ocean away, does this mean the quest for unity must be harder?  I'm thinking for example of the differences between African and American Anglican churches over sexuality.  This is a well known example but there must be others where Christian cultural traditions are growing further apart.  To what extent, does culture account for the differences between African and American Anglicanism, rather than theological emphases or tradition?

Or perhaps as Roman Catholicism, a single tradition, can embrace cultures all over the world, unity between very different Christian cultures is possible. The success of this church, with its centralised Magisterium, may imply all Christians should be a part of it but this would deny the witness of many Christians who seek freedom to worship outside of a centralised authority.

And what about local cultural differences?  Do inner city churches in Britain have more in common with each than with rural or suburban churches in the same city? 

How does culture influence the ways we express our faith? 

One further point.  Unity or reconciliation?  This topic resonates with the idea of a global church.  Where are the voices who are not heard?  Can Christians on the margins, whose voices are not heard, find solidarity with each other?  Or do they face one another through veils of incomprehension? 

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ecumenism Not Pluralism (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Catholicity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Subversive Ecumenism 5: Options for the Future

In England, many are seeking a vision for a new ecumenism and this implies the need for subversion of the existing ecumenical structures.  There is a need not just for new ideas but for a new paradigm and this is a task for all churches together - the authorities and the subversives holding each other to account and inspiring each other to change.

So, here are a few possibilities for the future:

Subversive Ecumenism 4: Limitations of Post-Denominational Churches

I have already written about the diversity of small churches in Britain.  In this post I want to assess their potential for subversive ecumenism, undermining the authorities of the mainstream traditions.

There is a continuum of post- denominational Christians.  Some younger people have stayed with the mainstream churches but their adherence to one particular tradition is weaker than previous generations. As parts of a consumer society, the traditional (and other) churches are products that can be used and discarded at will. Why not shop around until you find a church that suits? 

This is seen positively as a form of post-denominational ecumenism (Christians Together).  The old divisions no longer make sense, so there is no need to allow yourself to be formed by a specific tradition in a real time and place.

Where traditional churches have lost a sense of purpose, many new churches bring experience of the faith to groups of people otherwise untouched by the traditional churches.  As such they are a necessary challenge to the traditions, calling them to recognise a larger world than their rules and regulations might allow.

What happens when the new churches grow older?  Some people will leave, perhaps to join other churches or just cease to meet.  Others might seek ordination in a traditional denomination or move on to set up their own churches.

But what about those who remain in churches that become institutionalised?  Their problem is they have to avoid being institutionalised into a non-catholic authority.  The spirit of division can turn a spirit filled church into concrete amazingly quickly.  Interpretations by unaccountable leaders, intolerant of dissent, can soon petrify a small church.

A truly catholic church is necessarily diverse in two ways at least.  It must be diverse in terms of theology, otherwise its leadership will become authoritarian and unaccountable.  This can happen in liberal churches as much as evangelical or fundamentalist.  A single interpretation stifles dissent and stifles the spirit.

The other diversity is in the social origins of its members.  It is alarming so many churches are made up of entirely one age group, for example.  How do we develop churches where people unlike each other learn to live with and love each other?

It is clear the traditional and new churches need each other.  This is not so that the members of the new churches join the traditional.  It is so that old and new together can find a new way to preserve the fountainheads and receive new insights from the spirit.

Ecumenism is almost solely the property of the traditional churches.  Subversive ecumenism, reaching out across divisions, creating relationships beyond the doctrines that still divide comes from lay members, post-denominational worshipers or new churches.  They need the traditional churches as partners in a greater task of re-formation of the churches together.  Without the traditional churches, these small churches lack catholicity and can lose contact with the wider body of Christ.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Subversive Ecumenism 1: Achieving a Whole Church Oikoumene (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Subversive Ecumenism 2: Faith and Authority (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• The Discipline of Subversive Ecumenism (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• More thoughts about Subversive Ecumenism (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Fine Nets and Strategems (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Subversive Ecumenism 3: Ecumenical Authorities (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Subversive Ecumenism 3: Ecumenical Authorities

In England there are five main traditions, namely Roman Catholic, Church of England (Anglican / Episcopalian), Methodist, United Reformed and Baptist.  There are other major traditions in other parts of the world.  Their best kept secret is, all are already ecumenical.  All are coalitions, held together by authority of some type.  This internal ecumenism is sometimes called catholicity, the ability to hold together people who might otherwise be in deep disagreement. 

Must Ecumenism be about Control?

More than a century ago, the sociologist Max Weber wrote at length to argue for a fundamental difference between the two religious groupings [Protestants and Catholics], which resulted in Reformed Protestants becoming identified with self-discipline and a 'spirit of capitalism', and Protestants associated with a highly regulated 'work ethic' rarely possessed by Catholics.  The notion still holds some sway in popular consciousness, but detailed acquaintance with the story of Reformation and Counter-Reformation makes it dissolve into qualifications and contradiction; it is an idea best avoided.  Discipline and the urge to order people's lives were ecumenical qualities.  (From: A History of Christianity , by Diarmaid MacCulloch, page 685)

I'm still reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's book and my eye was caught by this paragraph and particularly the last sentence.  Most likely MaCulloch means ecumenical in the sense that all traditions shared the same urge.  However, I must confess I do feel at times that the aim of full visible unity is discipline and the desire to order people's lives. 

Inheritors of a Common Past

Following on from my last post , it is important to underline that we are all inheritors of the Christian past.  It may be tempting to turn on one tradition or another and blame them for the absurdities, and of course the violence, of the past.  In this and the next few posts, I want to explore how we deal with our past today.

Let me start with the Catholic Church .  There are 2 billion Christians in the world and half of them are Catholic.  We (I write as a Protestant) have to concede they must be doing something right.  Whatever you think of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, it cannot be true that so many Christians have got it wrong. 

Ecumenical Reception: a Cinderella Discipline?

I wrote about ecumenical reception  about a year ago and I return to it for just one post.  This links with recent posts about the Global Christian Forum  and its implications for local ecumenism.

A helpful text about ecumenical reception is Ecumenical Reception: Its Challenge and Opportunity  by William G Rusch.  It is rather dry although persistence might reward the reader with a few interesting insights.

The Global Christian Forum

After a month''s break, to work on my other blog , I thought it might be helpful to write a few posts about the Global Christian Forum (GCF). 

The first meeting of the GCF took place in November 2007 at Limuru  in Nairobi, Kenya, after nine years of preparation.  So, why discuss it now?  Recently, an account of this first meeting has been published, Revisioning Christian Unity  : The Global Christian Forum by Huibert van Beek (editor). 

The book reads as if someone has emptied the contents of their filing cabinet into it but amongst the reproduced reports and surveys, there is a wealth of useful information about what amounts to a new approach to ecumenism.

I will examine its distinctive features in more detail in future posts but here I will fill in a few broad brush strokes.  Limuru was the most comprehensive gathering of churches and Christian traditions there has ever been.  It is likely to have a similar significance for global ecumenism as the Edinburgh 1910 Missionary Conference had, as the start of the modern ecumenical movement.

The meeting brought together representatives from most Christian traditions, including: the member churches of the World Council of Churches  (primarily mainstream Protestant and Orthodox) who together form about 25% of the world's Christians, the Roman Catholic Church with one billion members representing half the world's Christians, and the other 25% comprising Pentecostal and evangelical churches.

It is this last group, the fastest growing group of Christians in today's world, who have not been represented at ecumenical gatherings in the past.  There are a variety of reasons for this.  One is their suspicion of the motives of the member churches of the World Council of Churches.  Their agenda is mission and they have not seen unity as a major priority.  Also, they tend to be congregationalist in ecclesiology and so there are issues about the extent to which any individual represents these churches.

One priority of the Forum was to ensure the regions (usually continents) were represented at Limuru.  The Limuru meeting was preceded by a series of regional meetings, over several years, and this helped to ensure all regions were represented.  The choice of Limuru as the venue, was intended to ensure African churches were well represented.

So, the list of churches not represented was very small.  Chinese Christians were not permitted to attend by the Chinese authorities and churches in the Middle East seem to have been under-represented.  This latter seems to have been an oversight and in future there will be regional meetings in the Middle East.  The only tradition that chose not to attend seems to have been some parts of the Assemblies of God.

Overall, the aim of representing all traditions seems to have been achieved.  This is a significant development in global ecumenism in itself.  In later posts I will explore some other innovations that have accompanied the GCF.

Yet More About Personal Ordinariates

OK OK I can't leave this topic alone.  Last time  I hoped would be the last post on this topic but I have found two more articles that reflect on the importance of this Vatican initiative.

How Churches Hold Themselves Together

Recently, I wrote about an elephant in the room  with respect to ecumenical conversations in Britain.  This time I am going to identify a second elephant.  We need an understanding of intra-ecumenism, the ecumenism within the historic traditions.

Most of the mainstream traditions are in fact alliances where churches have consented to a particular ecclesiology for the sake of unity.  Some of these alliances go back hundreds of years and so it is true in a sense that many traditions are themselves evidence that ecumenism works, up to a point.