Exploring Ecumenism

Changes Ahead for Exploring Ecumenism

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This post is one of my occasional orientations, introducing new themes for Exploring Ecumenism.

When I started this blog back in 2008, I was working for the Methodist Church and have done so until the end of last month, as Assistant Ecumenical Officer.  The big change is that I have been made redundant.  This will have implications for this blog.  My relationships with the ecumenical scene will inevitably change.  I will be more dependent upon the internet and my direct experience will be more local.  This may not be a bad thing, as I have long doubted the relevance of national ecumenism.

Whilst I was with the Methodist Church, I started a second ecumenical blog, called Methodist Ecumenical News.  My intention was to do something quite different from Exploring Ecumenism.  EE has always been speculative.  I have written mostly about my own thinking about ecumenism.  Methodist Ecumenical News was intended to be more of a billboard, drawing attention to what others are doing.

With Methodist Ecumenical News suspended for the time being, if not forever, I plan to add some of its approach to this blog.  However, the news sharing depended upon time and opportunity to pick up on things that were happening and those opportunities are harder now.  My plan is to explore how I can introduce posts which pick up some of the characteristics of Methodist Ecumenical News, drawing attention to new developments as they come to my attention.  My aim will be to combine the notice board elements of Methodist Ecumenical News with the comment typical of this blog.

I will also not be quite so constrained in my comments as I was.  I will still adhere to the principle that writing about ecumenism should be constructive and supportive of the work of others but I have already started to introduce material with more of an edge.  I will attempt to be an increasingly critical presence on the web because I believe anyone writing or thinking about ecumenism probably encounters a daunting lack of comments on their work. 

I should note that my hope back in November 2008, three years ago, was this blog would become a forum for debate.  I know it has readers but for whatever reason, few comment.  I would value more comments but in their absence, the least I can do is comment on the work of others, hopefully constructively.  If that generates debates, it would certainly be a welcome development as far as I'm concerned.

I am increasingly uneasy about the direction of modern ecumenism.  I have so far been critical by implication, writing about how I think things should be rather than how they are.  I have more freedom now to highlight bad practice and I shall begin to do that over the coming weeks and months.

In a nutshell, which shall take some time to unpack, I will make the point that national ecumenism is becoming bogged down with analytical theology, a mode of theology that was out of date in the 1960s (if it ever was up to date) and is increasingly counter-productive.  This type of theology is not fundamentalist but rather it is technocratic.  It is designed to keep power in the hands of church leaders.  It is divorced from the needs and interests of local churches and causes unnecessary confusion.

The time has come for a sea change in the way ecumenism is done.  I wouldn't be so arrogant as to suggest you will find it in this blog, but as one of the few people regularly blogging about ecumenism, I intend to challenge the old ways and encourage new radical thinking.

Related articles

• The Last Post? (ecumenicalissues.blogspot.com)
• Patience and God's Timing for Unity (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Expressing Catholicity in Common Confession (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Coming Up Soon ...

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This blog will be two years old in November and so, during my summer leave, I have been thinking about how it has developed and will develop into the future.   

From the beginning, I have written about ecumenical theology, starting from the basic ecumenical activity of conversation and extending it to the concept of oikoumene, the reconciliation of all things to God.  In recent months I have begun to relate these speculations to ecumenical history and key documents.  I will extend this over the coming months.

1. The most exciting opportunity has come from a friend who was a religious radio broadcaster during the 1980s Not Strangers but Pilgrims interchurch process.  She has been clearing her attic and so I have a pile of material to read and digest.  I have found little of this material on the internet and I don't at this stage know how much I will be able to get online but I hope over the coming months to develop a resource about this fascinating era of British ecumenism.
2. I have tended to ignore some of the major ecumenical statements, eg Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry or the statement on justification.  I hope to explore those available online and offer a guide to reading and interpreting them.  Ecumenical reception is crucial and the most neglected ecumenical activity.  The Faith and Order debate claims significant achievements but these achievements mean little if they are not known about, debated and understood.
3. I will start a series of book reviews.  I have referred to a number of books in support of my arguments but rarely discussed the books themselves.  So, I will return to some of the books I've referred to previously and also introduce some new ones.
4. A few years ago, Churches Together in England published a short pamphlet that listed key ecumenical texts from the Bible.  Under the category of exegesis I will be writing about each of these texts and asking what they might mean for churches today.
5. Finally, a topic about which I know very little but hope to learn more.  This might be headed ecumenism and culture.  Does culture make a difference to ecumenism?  We tend to think of ecumenism as unity or reconciliation between traditions.  Perhaps culture is also an issue for ecumenists.  

In my last post, I reported the new blog, Methodist Ecumenical News.  Whilst Exploring Ecumenism will continue to offer a speculative take on ecumenism, MEN will focus on what is current, agreed and of interest to Methodists.  I have found writing this blog helpful as a resource I use elsewhere, rather than something my many readers see fit to comment upon. 

For me the purpose of blogging is the opportunity it affords to develop ideas, ideas I find I use elsewhere.  It is a little odd to be writing a blog about conversation where no-one wishes to engage in conversation but I'm having the conversations elsewhere and so I suppose that is OK.

The Future of 'Exploring Ecumenism'

I have, during the last week, been reviewing my blogging and now I am at the stage where I can announce the changes I intend to make over the coming months.  Why am I making these changes?

A Seasonal Pause

There will be a pause for a week or so whilst I take a (well earned?) rest.  Please take this opportunity to explore this blog.  I have a lot of new ideas and will be announcing them soon after my return.

You may like to visit this post which is a request for material to share about ecumenism on this site.  But any thoughts or comments would be welcome and responded to upon my return.

The Relevance of Cosmology to Ecumenism

It is time to take stock and attempt to bring what might be seen as a long diversion into science and cosmology, back to my main theme.  What relevance has cosmology to ecumenism? 

An earlier post in this sequence developed some of my thoughts and in the next few posts I will develop the following in more detail:

1. The need for a new Christian cosmology.
2. Cosmology as context: The move away from structural unity
3. The re-enchantment of the material world.
4. Compassion and ecumenism

5. Faith and Belief

Ecumenism and Science

Some time ago I opened up the theme of cosmology and did not pursue it.  The time has come to pick it up and develop it in a more systematic way.  The first thing though is to say cosmology is part of the wider theme of science in general.  My intention is to follow up several themes under this heading, including Darwinism as well as cosmology.  I also intend to touch on the debates about atheism.

Why cover these issues in a blog about ecumenism? 

Future Plans for 'Exploring Ecumenism'

A few days ago I summarised where I have got to over the last few months.  Today I am going to outline my plans for this blog.  They have developed over the weeks since I started and I suppose they will continue to develop.

I intend to do some work on the layout of the blog so that it will be possible to visit pages to explore certain themes.  I have already worked on themes around conversations, systems theory, reception, diversity and sanctification.  The first two will require a substantial amount of additional attention, the last three less so. 

The idea is these pages, and a few new ones, will in time form an archive of my explorations of ecumenical theory.  I will also from time to time contribute posts that relate to immediate themes, as they come up in the news or in my experience.  These will tend to be shorter and link to longer posts in the archive pages.

So, what about future themes?  The first of the bullets below is an overarching theme, relating to all three dimensions of ecumenical work.  The other bullets all relate to transformative reception.

• A lot more about conversations and participative approaches to ecumenism.  This will form an overarching theme and I hope a more practical one.
• The relationships between the Christian traditions and modern science.  In particular, to explore modern cosmologies, as understood through quantum mechanics and complexity theory.
• Darwinism as a case study about the relationships between the traditions and science.
• Socio-economic challenges to the traditions, especially climate change, racism and debt / the credit crunch.
• I am also considering some work on violence and atheism although these are less central to my overall plan.

Plans for Exploring Ecumenism

Just before a short Christmas break, I thought it would be good to summarise my plans.  I've planned this blog with the aim of working out my own understanding of ecumenism.  I'm hoping to add a range of ideas I've come across over the last few years and then to try and make sense of them all.  There is still a lot more to add and here is a summary of what I have in mind for the next few months.

1. More thoughts about conversation and where new approaches are being used inside and outside the churches.  I'm also hoping to explore the place of conversation in Christian theology and how this theology might assist understanding the ecumenical task (whatever it is).
2. Pick up my own tradition and explore some of the implications of Wesleyan theology, especially Methodist understanding of sanctification. 
3. An exploration of the growth of Methodism and other working class movements in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  My particular emphasis will be on the development of mutuals.
4. An exploration of modern science especially cosmology and quantum physics.  The churches need to address some of these emerging paradigms in their theologies.
5. Particular exploration of Darwinism and evolution. 
6. This will lead me to consider the implications of militant atheism.
7. Detailed consideration of the potential for ecumenism to address key issues - climate change, debt, racism.

This is a general outline and I have every intention of being side-tracked as new issues are drawn to my attention.

A Merry Christmas to all my non-readers.

Christian Praxis Group

I participated in the Urban Theology Unit study year in 1981-2.  Six of us, who between us were on the study years between 1979 and 1982, met for the first time during 1983 and have met 2 - 4 times a year ever since.  We have met for study and support for over 25 years and call ourselves the Christian Praxis Group.  At first we saw ourselves as a continuation of the study year but have long since stopped reporting to the UTU AGM.

I'm trying to remember why we used the word Praxis in out name.  It is a word that is used where both action and reflection are deployed in a mutually interdependent way.  To act without reflection is known as activism and to reflect without action, verbalism, is a sterile activity, and perhaps a mark of academic theology.

The word is Greek and seems to have been used by Marx and, through the reflection on Marxism which was a facet of Latin American Liberation Theology, the word seems to have found its way into general reflection about contextual theology.  However, the word is deployed in the New Testament, most prominently in the title of the 'Acts of the Holy Apostles', Praxeis ton Agion Apostolon.

Over 25 years the group has covered an immense amount of ground and regularly studies the New Testament in the original Greek as well as exploring community development and adult education.  The category 'Praxis' in this blog is linked to posts that are related to the work of the Christian Praxis Group.  So, unlike other categories, 'Praxis' will include posts which are not themselves about Praxis but relate to matters the group has discussed over the years.

Ecumenical theology has developed in the context of the growth of radical or contextual theology during the last few decades.  I wonder to what extent it has responded to this movement in theology.  Often ecumenical theological conversations seem to take place remote from the local practitioners of ecumenism.  Contextual theology implies the conversations which take place locally, where ecumenism is done, are at least of equal value to the conversations between church leaders.  The practical implications of this emphasis, were it taken seriously, are profound.  Maybe the insights of small groups of Christians seriously discussing their theology would be of value here.

New Ecumenical Paradigms

I found this paragraph in an article by Jill Sandham and Hugh Dawes, chair and honorary secretary of the Progressive Christianity Network, Hope for Church in the 21^st century which can be found in Together in Hope: Proclaiming God's Justice Living God's Love, edited by Adrian Alker.  The article refers to Christianity's history of 'self-preservation and justification':

In reaction to that history, it is hardly surprising that in the twentieth century institutional Christianity became so preoccupied with the pursuit and recovery of unity.  We who write shared in that ourselves, and were excited by it.  But the liberation all too quickly turned sour.  In the hands of institutional Christianity, unity, which briefly seemed so exciting and so possible, got twisted into a concern for uniformity of a narrowly doctrinal and credal form.  With the result that today the institutional church can appear more divided and distorted than ever before.  (Page 39)

They look forward to the end of the institutional church and the formation of an associational church.  They argue that Western society 'uses power to enforce obedience'.  Further, 'institutional church governs largely through the clergy in much the same way'.  In an associational church, authority is 'something freely granted and bestowed by others'.

When I started working in formal ecumenism in 2003 there was some excitement about the possibility of a new paradigm for ecumenism.  Overall the thought was that it was not for us to formulate this paradigm; perhaps the generation of ecumenists to follow us would do it.

I am beginning to think it is too late.  The new paradigm is here, perhaps not fully articulated, but many Christians have already made up their minds about ecumenism.  The paradigm cannot be fully articulated by the Progressive Christianity Network or indeed any single organisation because the intriguing thing is there seems to be a consensus of sorts across a wide range of theologies and ecclesiologies. 

If there is a common factor it is age.  Somewhere between 30 and 40 years, there is a divide between older people who still see the traditional denominations as key to ecumenism and the younger who do not recognise denominations in the same way.  This younger group either rejects denominations altogether or moves between them; unwilling to make a commitment to one for life.

The quotation refers to the excitement at the pursuit and recovery of unity.  I hope to try to convey some of that excitement, as well as ask what has happened to it, in a future post.

Perhaps PCN is right and we must look forward to a future associational church.  The problem is that not everyone is going to travel in that particular direction.  It is an idea that is attractive to me but I don't see how we can turn our back on other churches that do not choose this path.  Somehow the ecumenical vision has to be wider than any one approach to the faith.  The ecumenical task has become more complex.