Exploring Ecumenism

The Pax Romana

The Pax Romana was a deal between conquerors and conquered.  When Rome conquered a territory it offered its inhabitants the peace of Rome.  It was a peace enforced by the sword but in most places the sword was rarely needed.  The people of the territory were to accept the rule of Rome, ususally through their own traditional social and political structures, and pay taxes.  In return they were offered peace; the Romans would defend them from external attack.

From idols to icons

There is no better place to start a survey of ecclesiology than with the cross.  If we do not understand its significance we cannot get to grips with what the church is for and its various structures.

Why Ecclesiology is Not Borring

Ancients like me will remember the Monty Python sketch, why accountancy is not boring.  Many Christians today would gladly attest that next to ecclesiology accountancy is rather racy.  If you tend to agree, here are a few thoughts, which might helpto change your mind.

Ecumenism and Science 5: Faith and Belief

Fundamentalism is vulnerable to criticism from a Newtonian worldview.  It shares that worldview absolutely with atheists and the two ideologies therefore feed off each other.  They fight over an impoverished 'God of the Gaps', narrowly conceived as a puppet to anyone's ideological agenda.

Ecumenism and Science 4: Compassion

We are not permitted to forget our religious wars, particularly those associated with the Protestant Reformation.  Mostly, these conflicts are behind us, with a few exceptions such as Northern Ireland, although of course we have the memories of past atrocities such as the wars between Christians and Muslims.

Ecumenism and Science 3: Returning Love to a Lifeless Universe

Newtonian cosmology has dis-enchanted the universe.  Perhaps some of this is positive, where old illusions have fallen away.  But where it views the cosmos as without life or consciousness, to be exploited for the good of humanity, the consequences can be negative.

Ecumenism and Science 2: Telling Stories in a New Cosmos

Newtonian Cosmology underlies modernism and also modern theology.  This context for ecumenism may account for the drift since the 1910 Edinburgh Mission Conference (which linked mission and ecumenism) to a strong emphasis on structural unity, culminating in the 1982 failure of the English Covenant.  The Newtonian view sees ecumenism as a problem to be solved rather than as a way of life.

Ecumenism and Science 1: Interpreting Science Together

In 1959 C P Snow published a lecture entitled The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.  The two cultures were science and literary humanities.  Over the years the barrier between them has to some degree been broken down.  To what extent is it true today that a scientist who didn't know Shakespeare's plays would be seen as ignorant, whereas a professor of humanities who didn't know the second law of thermodynamics would not?

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

On God's Relationship with Matter

We know very little about consciousness although, according to Martin in Does It Matter?, it should be possible to study it using scientific methods.  This would be through collection and comparison of accounts of experiences.  Wesley, according to Runyon's The New Creation(page 72f), understood experience to be important in spiritual matters.  He did not rule out an empirical approach to spiritual matters because accounts of experiences can be studied.