Exploring Ecumenism

The Glory of God

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Back to normal.  Well, more or less.  Yesterday I posted the last of my comments on the passages in one light: one world.  It is a Churches Together in England publication.  I don't know who chose the passages or on what basis, other than they are intended to be read as ecumenical passages.  Do these passages demonstrate the Bible is supportive of ecumenism?

This is not an easy question to answer.  A qualified yes, perhaps?  In this and the next two posts, I will focus on three themes that have emerged for me as I worked through the passages.  It is not that the Bible does not support ecumenism, so much as it addresses questions different from the ones modern ecumenists are asking.  This means we have to discern answers from the material we do find in the Bible.

The big positive is John 17 and the idea that unity is from the glory of God.  If we understand the glory of God to be the physical evidence we witness of God at work in the world, then this makes sense.  Unity is evidence of God's presence in the world.  In a world of violence, a community of people who are faithful to each other and yet open to all is a convincing witness to God.

This glory is best seen where love transcends traditional divisions.  To be part of the same structurally united church is not as impressive as being prepared to live and die for each other across our traditions.

Furthermore, structural unity necessarily implies excluding some who will not be a part of the one true church.  These will not only be small traditions who exclude themselves for one reason or another (and not all bonkers extremists, the Quakers would most likely be in this group for example) but also those who for one reason or another find no home in the mainstream churches. 

It is the poor, the destitute and the unloved who would be excluded.  And let's face it, people would on current showing be excluded on grounds of sexuality.

Would there really be a place for tax collectors and prostitutes in the great world church of Jesus?  I doubt it.  So, we need to look again at what we're trying to achieve as ecumenists.

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How Wonderful it is for God's People to Live Together in Harmony

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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 133: 1 - 3

It must have been the summer of 1973 when I had a vacation job with the Bassets Liquorice Factory in Sheffield.  I remember the bacon and egg double decker with tomato dip (in my pre-vegetarian days).  It was a wondrous sandwich; a bacon sandwich with a fried egg and one slice dipped in hot tinned tomatoes.  The best bit was biting into the egg yolk, which would burst.  The yellow goo ran down my chin and set in my beard.  Indeed a thing of wonder.

This image of Aaron's beard is both exhilarating and somewhat disgusting.  Presumably the oil would stay there for a long time as it's unlikely people often had a bath.  Such oil would make the priest smell relatively pleasant compared with others.

But you can feel the priest's pleasure in the poem and the pleasure is the point.  It's a positive note to end this series.  Unity as a pleasure!

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Aim to Do Good to One Another and to All People

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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 Thessalonians 5: 13 - 25

This is the end of another letter and again a list of good advice.  Presumably Paul intended to end the letter by being encouraging. 

The aim is in verse 23 is sanctification.  The mark of any Christian community is its growth in grace.  We forget this when we affirm our own tradition as right.  Even if our tradition has got it mostly right, we still need God's grace.

Verses 20 and 21 offer a clue.  We are told not to despise the words of the prophets and then to test everything, affirming what is good and abstaining from evil.  This is not to accept the words of the prophets at face value but to test their words and discern what they mean for us.

Surely this advice applies to unity as much as it does to anything else?  What do we need to affirm as we seek greater unity and what do we need to abstain from?

Whatever the answer, the point is at the end of this passage.  It is faithfulness, not losing sight of the vision that is Jesus Christ.

Maintain the Unity of the Spirit

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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: 2 - 6

The author emphasises unity.  There is one body, one spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

From a 21st century perspective there are two ways of understanding this. 

We could read it as saying there is one way of understanding scripture and the various takes on Christianity are in error.  Some traditions would claim they represent this one way and all the others fall short of being the one true church.  Others might think all traditions fall short.  If so, the task is to negotiate our way to agreement about the one way.

The second way of reading this is to affirm all traditions as parts of the one church.  No tradition alone is the one church but together the traditions are the one church.  Whilst this is the most attractive to me, I know I need to exercise caution.  Even where the lines I draw are intended to be inclusive, they are still lines.  The question as ever is who is not included; who is marginalised by human schemes and human structures?

On the one hand I could argue traditions that self identify as non-Christian faiths do not know the one way.  Alternatively I could argue all faiths participate to some degree.  The problem then becomes to what degree do they need to participate?  What about those we do not generally recognise as Christian but originate from Christianity, eg Seventh Day Adventism, Mormonism or Unitarianism?

This passage can be read exclusively and clearly the author intends this meaning because he is building up the communities reading this letter.  Or it can be read inclusively, seeing the Christian traditions (which did not exist at the time the letter was written) as a single way.  Taking either approach to extreme can lead us into making absurd claims.

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In Christ Jesus You Are All Children of God

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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.

Galatians 3: 26 - 29

The imagery here is of Christians as children of God.  It is important to distinguish between children as an image of dependency (usually unquestioning) and inheritors, a people who carry forward the work of the parent.

Verse 28 is often quoted out of context.  Look at the verses on either side of it.  This is true for those who are baptised into, with, in and belong to Christ.  This is not a claim made for the whole of humanity but for the church.  The church is a community set up in opposition to the conventions that divide humanity.

Wherever we see no such distinctions in the church (and add your own, it's unlikely Paul meant to restrict these divisions to the three mentioned), we see the glory of God.  We know we are children of God when we no longer make these distinctions.

This is the real ecumenical task.  It is not about reconciling institutions but reconciling people.

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In the Light We Have Fellowship with One Another

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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 John 1: 3 - 7

Read one of my earliest posts about Dark Holy Ground and put it alongside this passage.  My question is 'what on earth does he mean by walking in the light'?

Many Christians experience walking with God in the dark.  Often faith is tested in darkness and grows in the darkest places.  Clearly, the imagery in the passage is very different; fellowship needs to be in the light.

The words 'in him there is no darkness at all' recall similar words from Psalm 139, words very much taken to heart in the Dark Holy Ground course.  'The darkness with you is no darkness at all, the night is as light as the day.'  The imagery here is of darkness illuminated but still dark.  

John believes there is no fellowship with God in the dark.  Many who testify this is not true also experience light in darkness; things get really dark and yet the way is illuminated.  We must struggle with this competing imagery of light and dark.

Where the dark is as light as the day, there is fellowship.  People who experience this turn outwards, they are able to accompany and support others, to offer fellowship despite hardship.  I'm not sure this is what John means but it is an insight we all need to carry with us. 

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.

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Everything in Common

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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.

Acts 2: 42 - 47

The image here is community; what it means to live in community the way Jesus did.  The community becomes one body of people, who live and behave as if they are one person.

Over the centuries there have been many attempts to live in this way.  For many, it is an ideal, something other people do whilst the rest of us get on with living our lives.

Mutuality though is present in many communities, especially where there is poverty.  It is not restricted to intentional religious communities.  It is a desire to help one another because when mutuality breaks down the community is doomed.  It falls between selffishness and selflessness as self interest, understanding that by supporting others I further my own interests.

The reality is mutuality is a means of survival, a practice where people who stumble are held up because next time they will be the ones doing the holding.

The powers, political and religious, will do anything to break these networks of mutuality because they are profoundly threatening.

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Abide in Me as I Abide in You

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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.

John 15:1 - 16

This is the first passage in the last sequence.  These passages cover a variety of images of 'Life in Fellowship'.  I will focus on each image and its impact and on relationships between Christians, rather than institutions.

The branch is entirely dependent upon on the vine, or Jesus himself.  The branch has no purpose separate from the vine and those branches that do not bear fruit are removed.

The imagery changes from verse 12 and focuses upon friendship.  Love defines friendship and the greatest love is to be willing to give up life for friends.  Just as Jesus himself gave up his own life for his friends.

This makes the image of vine more meaningful of course.  To be a part of the vine, means Jesus' example becomes available to us.  Of course, some might feel uncomfortable about the need to lay down our lives for one another.  It can mean violent death, I am sure, but it also means a life of service.  Our call is to live for others, just as Jesus did.

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Delight in the Law of 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 1: 1 - 3

I can only conclude this was included as a space filler.  I can't see what this has to do with ecumenism, let alone the main section heading 'Recognising that we belong together' or the subheading 'Interdependence and partnership'.  It does not seem in any way to relate to the other passages under this subheading.

I have another problem with this passage and that is it needs to be read in the context of the New Testament.  The law has been superceded by grace and peace in Jesus Christ.  Whilst this does not invalidate it, it does mean we have a different focus or should have. 

Ultimately the law on its own is divisive.  We see this in the way the Pharisees used the law to exalt their own position in Jesus' day.  We see it in the way churches have used the law to justify marginalisation of those who break it.

A few nights ago we read the story of Jesus' last week in Matthew.  It included this verse (21:32): 'For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him ...'

Leaving aside how disconcerting it might be for both tax collectors and prostitutes to be lumped together in this way, we should understand it is they who really meditate on the law!  If you know sin, you somehow also know the law.  You understand the nature of the hypocrisy Jesus inveighs at in these chapters.

It is those who inhabit the margins who know the law, value the law and desire to follow the law.  Do they prosper?  At this question the Pharisee rushes to the head of the queue and claims 'I prosper unlike the tax collectors and prostitutes'.  The latter turn away humiliated.

And yet is it not those who turn away humiliated, those who know the reality of the law and of hypocrisy, who are like trees planted by streams of water?