Exploring Ecumenism

From Structural to Relational Unity

I intend to develop the theme of mutuality further but before I do that, perhaps this is a good point to step back and ask why it is important to ecumenism.

Throughout this blog I am developing a theology of ecumenism based upon oikoumene, the reconciliation of all things to God, rather than the ecumenism which focuses upon reconciliation of the churches.  After the failure of the English Covenant during the early 1980s, the enthusiasm for structural unity began to fall away.  In 1987, the Swanwick Agreement led to the Churches Together approach, an approach based on relationships rather than structures.  Here we are 20 years on and it seems Swanwick was ahead of its time.  The mainstream churches still cling to the old vision whilst other churches and younger generations have abandoned structural unity and are developing their own approach to relational unity.

We need an approach which contextualises ecumenism within the world as we find it.  My approach is to develop a theological approach to conversations.

Clearly if we understand conversations to mean simply talks between churches we will not progress very far.  This is where Kahane's typology of conversations and particularly his generative type of conversation is so important.

Generative conversations embody a collective commitment to act according to a shared vision.  So does mutuality as a shared economic vision.  Mutuality is a word we use to describe generative conversation.

At some time in the future I will introduce the theme of post-Christendom to this blog.  Some churches see their calling as a return to the authentic witness of the first century church.  This is a view with which I have some sympathy but my question is whether it goes far enough.  It is easy for a small congregationalist church to claim authenticity.  Maybe they are right but if they are it is still not good enough.

Why not?  Because our call is not to simply save ourselves but the transformation of the whole of creation.  When the churches ignore this greater calling, called sanctification by Wesley, then things go wrong for everyone.

The reason I focus on issues such as the economy is that I believe it is by focusing on these issues together, the churches will be much more effective than attempting to be authentic alone. 

I have called this dimension of ecumenism transformational reception. 

Churches and Paradigm Shifts

One of the interesting things about the credit crunch is the idea, expressed by politicians and the media, that what we need is a return to normality.  The normality they mean has lasted for a couple of decades at the most and the present crisis is a move to a new normality.  The economy is correcting itself and when this happens it is always painful.

What we are experiencing is of course a change of paradigm.  The problem is that we don't yet know what the new paradigm will be.

I expect sooner or later someone will tell me the approaches I recommend in this blog are secular in origin.  My response to this is that many of the methods and approaches freely used in our society originated during past paradigm shifts and from the churches' reflection upon changes happening around them.  Examples of the type of thing I mean include the growth in nineteenth century working class movements, the origins of community development and a great deal of management theory.  I have already written about one of these and may write about the others at some future time.

The churches have as many problems with shifts in paradigm as everyone else.  Our focus should not be on whether various methodologies are Christian or not; often when we look it is our own approaches that are returning to us, perhaps developed out of recognition by conversations with the secular world.  Our focus should be upon our response to the next shift.

The problem is that when a shift in paradigm is needed it can be difficult to see a way forward whilst the mind is with the old paradigm.  Churches may be well positioned to see beyond the old paradigm precisely because they cherish older traditions.  It is different mindsets that are needed in times of change.

The focus of a range of traditions on the same problem may have great potential to bring about real change.  It is time we as churches together attempt to do this, whether or not we think we've done it before.  To those who think I should be writing about the need for a movement of the spirit; that is exactly what I'm saying.  The spirit moves where it wills and so we should not close any door because we fear certain approaches are not Christian enough.

Realising and Discipleship

And so we come to the third stage of the U model, from bottom to top right, the stage Presence calls 'realising'.  Through the last two posts I have laid the stages alongside theological and Wesleyan concepts.  So we have had sensing, incarnation and prevenient grace.  Presencing, metanoia and justification.  Today, I line up realising with discipleship and sanctification.

For Wesley, justification was the stage at which a person knows their sins are forgiven and makes the decision to join the church, people are discipled together.  This decision is made as a result of their change of orientation from self to living for others.  For Wesley, they know they are saved but at the start of life as a Christian.  They will fall back many times but they are now a part of a People of the Way.

For Presence, realising

suggests a different stance of "cocreation" between the individual or collective and the larger world.  The self and the world are inescapably interconnected.  The self doesn't react to a reality outside, nor does it create something new in isolation - rather, like the seed of a tree, it becomes the gateway for the coming into being of a new world.  (Page 92)

So, what is this state of realising?  I see in it a parallel to the model of sanctification I have already described.  The individual is able to set aside their personal interests and live for others.  It also normally implies a commitment to working with others.  This is the thinking behind various types of intentional community in Christian praxis.

Is it legitimate to make these comparisons?  I must again emphasise I'm placing two models side by side, not attempting to combine them into one model.  It is interesting though to see the ways in which the U model mirrors the Christian model, and indeed we find this model appearing time and again in Christian history.  It is present for example in the practice of baptism, especially baptism by immersion, where the Christian descends symbolically into the water, where they die and then emerge to a new life.

I will in future posts examine in more detail what this model means for Christians and how the U model might help us understand our own traditions.  But first I need to take stock by considering exactly what the relationship of Presence is to the Christian faith and its ecumenical implications.

Living with Uncertainty

Just under a month ago I posted an article about Separation.  At the end of that article, I took leave for a period of the book Presence.  Today, I return to that book and start where I left off with the theme of separation.

Over the last month or so I have explored Wesley's doctrine of sanctification and I hope shown it is a doctrine that seeks reconciliation between the Christian and non-Christian worlds.  There is a sense in which the separation Christian traditions experience, is a subset of the separation we experience from the wider world.  This wider separation might be understood as the alienation of modern people from the cosmos.  The sense in which we can live our lives cut off from one another, from the natural world or even the physical reality of the night sky.

In Presence the authors write:

... we tend to get stuck in a single story that we accept without thinking.  And it seems to me that's exactly our larger predicament in the world today: we're stuck in a story of who we are on this earth as human beings, and something in us wants to break free of it.  (Page 72)

Whilst this passage refers to the assumptions or world views all people live with, it can be applied to the experience of Christians within their traditions (or even narrower takes on the faith in local churches). 

But as the authors go on to say, We have no idea the cost we pay for living this story of separation.  Indeed, when we look at the history of persecutions, warfare and rivalries between Christians of different traditions, each convinced they are right to the exclusion of others, it is hard to imagine what we have lost. 

The opportunity ecumenism offers to all Christians is to learn how to belong to a tradition whilst being challenged by the others.  This is why the imposition of full visible unity is so problematic; is it at root the old Christendom approach to the faith?  Somehow we have to learn how to live with uncertainty, our certainty about salvation must grow from our humility; faith in a God who is essentially unknowable.  We must free ourselves from the tyranny of being right.  Our commitment to ecumenism (or even oikoumene) might help us in this journey towards certain uncertainty.

Transformational Reception

I am working on a new subtitle for this blog.  My working draft is: 'A radical Wesleyan approach to transformation through ecumenical conversations'.

This is meant to pull together many of the strands I have covered over the last few weeks and I will try to outline here how I see it coming together.

Radical Wesleyan

My roots are in radical theology and so I think 'radical' is important but my roots are also in Methodism and I think from a Methodist perspective Wesley is important and especially his doctrine of sanctification.

Furthermore, sanctification is the key to unlocking the third dimension of reception.  Wesley was a high church Tory and yet against his own preconceptions he introduced several radical approaches to the Christian faith.  From 'consenting to become more vile' over field preaching to his ordination of ministers for America, and many other times, he acted with reluctance but decisively.  I think the reason is that his conservative inclinations were covered by the first two dimensions of reception (ie receptive ecumenism between traditions and ecumenical reception between the local and central church) but the third dimension (the new industrial poor in particular) radicalised him.  Here the issue was reception by the world of the Christian faith but also reception by the church from the world.  I shall name this dimension 'transformational reception'. 

Transformation ('transformational reception')

This is where we find reception of ideas by and from the world.  The other two dimensions (the traditions, and local and central church) are largely internal conversations whilst this dimension opens up these other two dimensions to the reality of the world as it is.

The churches observe the world and respond to the world through the inspiration of the spirit.  Without this third dimension ecumenism becomes an inward and solipcistic activity.  Increasingly little of what the traditions say to the world will make sense or seem relevant or even loving.  This is why so much street preaching these days is marginal; most of the groups that practice it are sectarian and live in their own world cut off from the reality most people experience. 

Ecumenical conversations

The tendency is for formal ecumenism to be understood in a linear fashion.  It is communication of my tradition to others, ecumenical decisions to local churches and the faith to the rest of the world.  My point is that each of these dimensions is two way; they are conversations.  The challenge to ecumenists is to learn to work in these three dimensions and in both directions.

A further complexity depends upon how we understand conversations.  First, conversations are not second best to action.  To enter into a good conversation is to act, even though it may be an exchange of words.  But conversations do not have to be words; any action that causes a response is a conversation.  In this sense the divine word is not only spoken but also acted.

So far I can think of three distinct categories of conversation for transformational reception:

• Conversations, usually verbal between the traditions and the world; secularists and people of other faiths.  Each tradition may well have such conversations of its own but there needs to be a pooling of insights and ideas, if not full collaboration.
• Conversations that consist of interventions into matters of socio-economic reality.  A great deal of ecumenical chaplaincy work, community work and even campaigning will come under this heading.
• Science and the study of the cosmos as a whole.  An experiment or field observation can be seen as a conversation.  Each tradition will of course have its own interpretation of scientific findings.

The study of missiology has a term Missio Dei, by which is meant God taking the initiative in mission;the experience of finding God already active in the most unexpected places.  I'm not sure whether this is any different from what Wesley meant by prevenient grace.  Transformational reception incorporates this activity into my model of ecumenism.  It also begins to offer us a theoretical framework for understanding 'mission in unity'.

Nineteenth Century Working Class Movements

If my conjecture about the impact of Wesley's evangelical revival on the nineteenth century working classes is correct I will need more evidence to back it up than I am capable of producing.  Nonetheless, I think there is a certain amount of circumstantial evidence around and yesterday I suggested some evidence from Wesley's teaching.  At the very least this evidence might encourage further exploration. 

Today I want to explore circumstantial evidence from those movements themselves.  My first point is that there is plenty of evidence that many of the familiar institutions in modern society  originated from the organised working classes rather than from the initiatives of the wealthy.  Of course money was needed to, for example build churches, but social institutions were quite another matter. 

The retail co-operative movement is particularly interesting as it was founded to provide high quality food to the poor at an affordable price.  The customers were the owners and received a share of the profit as a dividend.  The growth of this movement is often under-appreciated and as well as hundreds of retail societies, the co-op developed the first wholesale societies and the networks of transport to deliver supplies to the retail societies.  Even department stores were an invention of the co-operative movement.  The earliest societies also had reading rooms and aimed to educate their customers as well as feed them.  This spirit of co-operation spread into libraries, banks, building societies, insurance companies as well as many small mutual aid societies where members paid into a common pool to support those members or their families who fell on hard times.  Note I'm not arguing these grew out of formal Methodism but that the ways in which Methodism was organised encouraged similar developments in other fields. 

Co-operation or mutuality is another element of these institutions.  Mutuality is an approach about which I will have a lot to say in future posts.  It is understood by the poor, as they commit to support one another in their poverty.  By organising, mutuality could be made more effective.  It is not generally understood to be summarised in Jesus' second commandment to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.  Preachers often say this means we have to love ourselves after our neighbours but this is not the plain meaning of the words.  This is not pure altruism, it is care for all as if we are a part of each other.  Why?  Because we are all loved by God and so the second commandment means everyone including me. 

Finally, we should note that Methodism and these movements were democratic.  There are many forms of democracy, the two main types being representative democracy (where we elect others to represent us) and the type where we are heard directly.  Representative democracy is a convenience, the direct type requires our commitment.  It requires our participation in the process even where the final decision may be made by a few elected or agreed leaders. 

Wesley was never elected and his societies were run by trusted selected leaders.  However, it is interesting to read how he viewed 'conferencing'.  Runyon writes:

... Wesley's understanding of "conference" as a means of grace.  Whilst it is true that "conference" later became the term for the one hundred preachers Wesley assembled annually to advise him and to conduct the business of Methodism, from the beginning "conferring together" or "conferencing", was the means of opening up new insights and possibilities that could not be arrived at singly.  The effect was democratising, ... whether Wesley intended it or not.  Its rapid growth from small beginnings resulted in members of the movement having 'a direct say in many decisions ... All this was democracy in action, and ran counter to the authoritarian and hierarchical structure inherited by the Church of England from the Middle Ages.'  (Page 126, Runyon's emphasis)

So, what has all this to do with ecumenism?  After two months of posts I think I am now in a position to summarise my understanding of what ecumenism is. 

Leadership: Mutual Care or Inspirational Preaching?

St John's Methodist Church occupied an enormous building until a few years ago.  In recent years it was known as Crookes Valley Methodist Church, who occupied only a small part of the building and had eventually to sell it.  The building is still there and looms above the traffic on the junction of Crookes Valley Road and Crookesmoor Road in Sheffield.  If Mervyn Peak ever needed inspiration for Gormanghast, this is it!

The building was constructed in 1890 for £7000.  One year later they still owed £700 and raised it at a faith tea - a sum that would still be seen as outstanding today.  It was little wonder this was possible because the foundation stone made mention of names such as TW Ward and Samuel Osborn, founders of major steel firms in Sheffield. 

When the church opened it had a penny bank and a 'sick and dividing club'.  You paid into the latter regularly, and if you fell ill on a working day, your wife could call in before 9.30am to pick up a day's pay.  There was also a library and boys brigade.  The latter was armed until 1939 and some people still remember the gun room.

St John's was typical of northern 'chapel culture', many chapels offered a mixture of support and cultural activities as well as the classes and bands that early Methodism is noted for.  This is partial evidence of Methodism's influence over working class movements throughout the nineteenth century.  Runyon writes (page 124):

When one takes into consideration the additional leadership roles in the societies - band leaders, stewards, assistants, visitors of the sick, schoolmasters, and so forth - it becomes apparent why the movement became a seedbed for cultivating not only its own leadership but providing leaders for the labour movement and the emerging middle class as well. 

So this movement did not depend upon evangelistic fervour or the hard sell but this mutual concern for each other in local neighbourhoods.  The success of Methodism was determined by this and not great preachers.  We should not make the mistake of thinking its successes were entirely about making new Methodists, this witness or example in local neighbourhoods must have had an impact far beyond formal Methodism.  The wealthy may have built the church buildings but the poor with their mutual caring made them into churches.

Perhaps only circumstantial evidence of the effects of sanctification on wider society but we surely must concede this is worth further exploration? 

How far did Wesley organise the working class?

I have just returned from my local Methodist Church Council.  Did I enjoy the meeting?  Well, I certainly endured the meeting.  It is hard sometimes to understand that meetings like these are amongst Wesley's legacy to humanity and an outgrowth of his doctrine of sanctification.

It is easy to be turned off by eighteenth century theology; all the complex words with nice meanings.  It's like that because theology was controversial and all sides honed the language to give them the precision they needed.  Wesley was different, not because he didn't argue (oh yes he did), but because for him theology was 'here and now'.  Wesley understood, albeit sometimes reluctantly, that for the spirit to flow amongst the industrialised urban poor he needed structures.  There was a lack of religious leadership, so Wesley organised the early Methodists in societies, bands and classes, where they helped each other along the way of perfection.

On page 115, Runyon writes:

Methodist preaching at typical open-air meetings ended not with an "altar call" and a count of the number of conversions, but with an announcement of where the local Methodist society met and an invitation to attend these meetings. ...  Every member of the body is important because the Spirit ministers through each to each.  It is undoubtedly true that it was by means of the Methodist organisational pattern that the fruits of the revival were conserved and multiplied.

It is said that Wesley was naturally conservative and resisted each of his innovations, from consenting to become more vile (field preaching) to his ordination of ministers for the American Methodist Church.

But perhaps most significant was the way he organised the poor.  This enabled the faith to be passed from each to each and beyond.  As people came in touch with the Methodists they learned how to organise and these skills were passed on.  I am not aware that anyone has tried to trace a route from Wesley to other British working class movements.  Did he also create trade unions, worker and retail co-operatives, building societies, penny banks, insurance schemes as well as numerous small mutual aid organisations?

If there is such a link it means most of the institutions we live and work with up to this day (including many I have not mentioned) were the products of organised working people, a legacy of Wesley's.  Of course he would say it was the work of the spirit; that through sanctification all these were the spirit's gifts to the world.  Through the poor the Spirit built so many of our modern institutions, through innovation not available to the wealthy.

Is this true?  I will go some way to substantiate it in my next post, but it is a theory I would like to follow up at some stage; at present there is a limit to how far I can go to substantiate this argument.

A Vigorous Protest Against Pietistic Individualism

 'Rosa Parks sat, so that King could walk, so that Obama could run, so that our children can fly'. 

Yesterday, I quoted this at the end of my post.  Afterwards, when pondering the next step in my argument, I realised I could see it in that quote from our local King / Obama celebration last night.  The action of one woman, her determination to make a stand for justice by sitting, has had a ripple effect - she is known and is an inspiration to many in her own time and through to this day.

I read somewhere that our moods are affected by friends of our friends' friends.  The moods of people three friendships away can still affect us even though we do not know them.  So, perhaps it is possible that perfection (whether or not entire) has an incalculable impact, conscious and unconscious.

Theodore Runyon in The New Creation writes, 'One of the reasons Wesley is such an interesting figure is that he combines both an early stage of ... pietistic individualism and a vigorous protest against it.'  (Page 103)  It seems individualism emerged from pietism, reducing religion to what happens between the individual and their personal experience of God.  'Trinitarian spiritual energy not only constitutes the church but is its continuing dynamic.  Human beings participate in this power and are incorporated into its dynamic ...' 

Perhaps another example will help.  President Obama invited nine people to his inauguration today because he found them an inspiration.  In 1957 nine black students were enrolled into a previously all white school at Little Rock.  Eventually troops had to be called in and the Little Rock Nine had to endure months of physical and mental abuse.  They were young teenagers aged 14 and 15 and yet they persisted because they knew they were doing it for others.

This power that comes from non-violent courage; the ability to stand against evil and embody God's love, does not remain internal to individuals.  It flows into the community, not even bounded by the Christian Community.  How can it be that sanctification benefits all, not just Christians?  Evangelists speak of Misseo Dei, the discovery that God's mission has gone before them.  The mystery of the resurrection is that it opens up the possibility that the whole of humanity can participate in God's New Creation, perhaps unawares.  I think this is also what Wesley meant by prevenient grace, the grace that becomes available to all through God's love expressed through ordinary people. 

Entire Sanctification: Why did Rosa Parks sit?

If only Wesley had heard of the asymptote; his teachings about entire sanctification might have given him far less trouble.  If you're not sure what an asymptote is follow the link and look at the shape of the curve.  The interesting thing is the curve approaches a value but never quite reaches it.  These are not parallel lines but lines that never quite meet.

Theodore Runyon in The New Creation writes:

'Albert Outler suggests that the doctrine (entire sanctification) has been misunderstood not only by Wesley's opponents but also by his friends and followers because they had read it from the Western Latin translation as perfectio (perfected perfection), an achieved state of perfection, rather than as teleiotes (perfecting perfection), "a never ending aspiration for all of love's fullness."  It is the latter tradition which, according to Outler, informed and undergirded Wesley's position.'  (Page 91, his emphases).

The mistake is to confuse the experience of grace with the goal of that experience.  This is the furthest vision Wesley had of a life with grace, it was something he maintained was or had to be possible to give us hope, even though he conceded there remains a kernel of sin.  We can always imagine getting closer to perfection without ever quite getting there.

This evening I attended a community commemoration of the death of Martin Luther King and of the inauguration (tomorrow) of Barach Obama.  In conversation about some of King's sayings we realised that (1) those who do evil think they are doing good, and that (2) we too think we are doing good.  The work of perfection is to see the ways in which our best intentions are warped by sin.  Those who attain perfection are not aware of it, they know their own sin. 

Perfection is a way, not a state of being, and so the invitation to faith is first and foremost to be people of the way.  The point is this does not only radicalise personal ethics but also causes social transformation.  The slogan this evening was 'Rosa Parks sat, so that King could walk, so that Obama could run, so that our children can fly'.