Exploring Ecumenism

Ecumenism Re-imagined as Diversity

In this my last reflection for now on Kim's book, Christ's Body in Corinth, I want to ask what the implications are for ecumenism and particularly transformational reception, that is the conversation churches together have with the wider world. 

Ecumenism: Unity or Reconciliation?

According to Kim it depends upon how you read Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  If you see the world from the perspective of the church, as hegemonic hierarchy, then you will understand ecumenism to be about unity.  The Body of Christ is defined by belief, and boundaries are drawn between believers and non-believers.

For Paul though, according to Kim, the problem is not disunity but conflict between factions.  His solution to power conflicts is reconciliation  between diverse groups.  This is achieved by living the life of Christ crucified rather than through belonging to a church. 

The Cross

Returning to the theme of the Body of Christ.  Fundamental to our understanding of what Paul means by this is, according to KIm, the cross.  Crucifixion was for slaves, the marginalised and the poor.  Through Jesus God identified with them.  This is why Kim argues Paul cannot mean hierarchical or hegemonic unity.  Jesus' death identifies God with the lowest in society.  The problem in Corinth was the patronage system and the resultant perception of unity as between leadership, rather than in the solidarity of the most marginal people.

Fundamentalism and Ecumenism

I'm not attempting an in-depth analysis of the current economic crisis.  My focus in this post is as always the implications for relationships between the churches.  They are profound for two reasons.

First, the churches are compromised themselves.  The mainstream churches have investments and participate in the same markets as everyone else.  Absolutely, stipends and pensions have to be paid but this does raise questions about where the interests of the churches lie.  For some churches, aware of the criticisms, the stance is of quiet embarrassment.  For others, wealth is evidence of God's favour and so should be shouted about.  So, we hear about American mega-churches which include shopping malls, branches of McDonald's, etc.  We also hear from time to time of instances of corruption as TV evangelists are found out.

Which brings me to the second problem.  Whilst the emphasis of formal talks tends to be upon (broadly) Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, these are not the divisions in the church I really feel.  I can live without sharing communion with my Catholic friends because we can share in other things and when I see them take communions I see fellow Christians declaring their faith as I do when I take communion.  I appreciate some people have more of a problem with this, eg interchurch families, but this is how I feel - a consequence of my history.  What I find difficult to accept is the fundamentalist praxis of some Churches.

My problem is not with their politics so much as their theology.  When I read their words or learn of their activities I see a fantastic interpretation of scripture which places our disparate understandings of communion in the shade.  We might not be able to agree about communion but broadly we can agree about right and wrong.  There are Christians who I believe call evil good and good evil.  I'm sure they feel much the same about me.

If only it were as simple as saying these people are not really Christians and so do not need to be included in the one church.  The problem is this is exactly what they are saying about me and the other mainstream churches.  We don't accept their partial reading of scripture and so we are the ones who are damned in their eyes.  How does it help if I believe the same about them?  Fundamentalism is premised on the rejection and marginalisation of others. 

Our vision of one church comes adrift on this issue.  Do we abandon marginalised people in order to embrace fundamentalist Christians?  I think not.  So, what can we do?  Especially compromised as we are.

The criticisms from atheists will be different.  They seem to be saying Christians are all the same.  They do our ecumenism for us!  But even though we are compromised, we are not the same. 

Take the Church of England.  A major problem for some Christians in the English ecumenical movement is that it is an established church.  Undoubtedly it is compromised in terms of its investments but I think it unfair to take this critique too far.  This church does not accept there is one reading of scripture.  Historically it is a compromise between many theological perspectives from Catholic to Evangelical, taking in various streams of liberal and radical theology.  Further, its relationship with the state is expressed through its parish system which in principle makes it the voice of everyone in the country.  It is as representative as any church can be not of the state understood as government but of the state understood as the people.  Just like Dr Johnson's observation of the dog walking on its hind legs, the point is not that the Church of England does these well so much as it attempts to do them at all.

These pillars of the Church of England and wider Anglican movement are under attack.  This is expressed through those who will not compromise on their theological positions, eg women priests or sexuality.  Also those who would erode the parish system in the name of mission.  These enthusiasts should take note of the words from the song 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone'.

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. 

Problems with 'Free Church Ecclesiology'

But why the emphasis in unity?  Why is it so important that the churches are united?  One common answer to this question is to quote John 17:21, 'that they may all be one ... so that the world may believe that you have sent me'.

This is not in itself an argument.  The main difficulty I have with it is that I don't know what is meant by 'be one'.  It has been understood by ecumenists as structural unity.  Others argue that the traditions should be united in mission and that church structures are helpful in terms of being organised but do not need to be reconciled for Christians to be united.  The problem with their view is that without structural unity, at least as a goal, it is too easy to drift, to lose sight of the goal of unity.

There are of course fast growing churches that have opted out of major church structures and indeed out of the goal of unity.  These are varied churches covering fundamentalist through to radical theologies; including Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic and house churches. 

I heard a lecture in January 2004, given by Doug Gay, called 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.  He described these churches as having 'free church ecclesiology', self-certified and uneasy about unity and catholicity.  He named a few churches where this approach to church had gone wrong, in some instances through abuse of church members.  This can be a heavy price to pay for their failure to find a place in the mainstream churches.  The mainstream churches have a degree of historical wisdom; they know how to negotiate issues of power and conflict.

He went on to state that he believes God provides for the church and that the new churches sometimes refuse to accept what God provides.  He gave three examples of the way new churches might do this:

1. Inertia - the belief that we are the last Christians.  The refusal to believe that God has anything new to offer the church.
2. Amnesia - the belief that we are the first Christians, and so do not believe that there is anything of value in the established traditions.
3. Xenophobia - the belief that we are the only Christians - a refusal to accept the richness and diversity of human culture.

He finished by saying he believed that unity belongs to the future and so it is a union of churches that we should be seeking.  Openness to God is through openness to all churches; it shows that you are in fact a church.

This was a stimulating challenge to the new churches but is there any chance of the older churches meeting them on common ground?  If the challenge to new churches is to take on board the wisdom and experience of the mainstream traditions, what challenges are being made to the older traditions by the new churches?  I will attempt to answer this question in my next post.

The Process and Content of Ecumenical Conversations

A few years ago there was a craze for wearing wristbands with the initials 'WWJD?'.  What Would Jesus Do?  This was not something I found particularly helpful but upon reflection it did seem to me they were asking the wrong question.  A wristband with the reminder 'HWJDI?' might be more helpful.  How Would Jesus Do It?. 

If any of my non-existent readers have been wondering, in their hypothetical way, why this blog is different from most writings about ecumenism, here is my answer.  It is different because my interest in ecumenism is more about process than content.  Usually, ecumenists write about the differences between traditions and the content of conversations aims to reconcile these differences.  My interest is in how these conversations are conducted.

Obviously form and content are not independent.  The way we conduct our conversations will affect content and indeed content will determine process.  Where mindsets are about control, typical of many traditionalist approaches, then it is not surprising that the way conversations are conducted is also about control.

Each to their own I suppose, but it does seem to me this top-down approach to ecumenism accounts for the much reported stalling of modern ecumenism.  In my experience ecumenism is dead amongst people aged under 30 (or is it under 40?). 

I've done a lot of reading today and lost track where I read something I jotted down on a post-it note - so apologies to whoever wrote it.  It went something like this: '...not theological dialogue in isolation but in lived and growing communion in the life and mission on the part of the whole people of God'. 

This is another example of the lived vision I have been writing about recently.  If we are moving to a new ecumenical paradigm it has to be through this type of lived vision.  This is not an end to ecumenical conversations but a fundamental change to the way we conduct conversations. 

Control comes out of a non-biblical fixation on rules or morality.  Living vision, or faith, does not need rules or people to enforce them.  The ability to live according to love comes through the Christian community, people seeking perfection together. 

Wesley was able to leave his societies, classes and bands to meet and act as spiritual directors to each other because in the main they were able to do it.  Yes, in the main, does mean they needed some help and this leads us to ask what kind of leaders Christian communities need.

They are leaders who are there not to police or control but to ensure that process does not fall into the hands of those who want to police and control.  Who are those people who want to control?  They are all of us; people like me.  Control is not always in the hands of priests; we are all prone to thinking we know better than the Spirit.  This is why we need to learn more about conversations; to understand how good conversations free us from the need to control.

Ecumenism and the U model

There are plenty of precedents for schism in the history of Christian churches.  Falling out over matters of doctrine is always a possibility where our primary focus is on preserving doctrinal insights from the past.  The Presence U model encourages us to focus on the future, on new insights to the faith we have yet to experience.

About a week ago, I started to explore the U model and how it might relate to the Christian faith.  Today, I want to look at how it might help us understand the ecumenical task.

I don't want to forget the many achievements ecumenism has made over the years.  In the UK relationships between the mainstream traditions are very positive.  There is at present a level of positive work together unthinkable before the second world war.  There have been major steps forward, most prominently the Methodist Deed of Union in 1932 and the formation of the United Reformed Church in 1972.  Around the world there are several United or Uniting Churches. 

One problem is that we may be victims of this success.  This success suggests that full visible unity is achieved by uniting churches.  This is achieved through formal talks that aim to resolve differences between churches, so they can move towards formal unity.  Indeed these churches can claim a significant degree of success.  Advances in understanding has done much to remove the suspicion between churches.  The remaining problems are I think these:

1. There remain many significant churches outside of formal ecumenism.  In the UK a major split is between the ecumenical instruments such as Churches Together in Britain and Ireland or Churches Together in England on the one hand and the Evangelical Alliance (EA) on the other.  The EA is a much larger organisation than the mainstream ecumenical instruments, at least in terms of staff.  I suspect there are many churches that are outside the EA too.  These will include Pentecostal, Charismatic and Evangelical Churches that choose to be completely independent.  Also, BME (black and minority ethnic) churches, some of which are 'home grown' and others branches of of movements from overseas.  There are also smaller house churches and fresh expressions which for one reason or another do not join wider organisations.  How meaningful would full visible unity be if it excluded some or all of these churches?
2. Formal conversations are often said to help participants understand their own tradition better.  The downside of this from the point of full visible unity is that as our own tradition becomes clearer we find more obstacles to unity!  Certainly ecumenism can come over sometimes as defensive of traditions, rather than a willingness to make the first move towards unity.
3. Not everyone involved in mainstream ecumenism shares the objective of full visible unity. 
4. For some a movement through bilateral conversations towards one tradition is a move further from another.  For example, women bishops will help the Church of England in its search for unity with the Methodist Church but distances it further from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches.
5. Even where agreements have been made through formal conversations, they are not always acceptable to local churches.  This is not always expressed through forthright resistance, but sometimes by simply ignoring the agreements.

All of these factors and possibly more account for a sense of stuck-ness amongst the churches in the UK.  The churches have had the dialogues and are even contemplating conversations where they try on the shoes of other traditions as it were, through receptive ecumenism.  But trying new things works only when old assumptions are set aside.

Vision according to Presence is not just words, it is something that is discovered in the future by being acted out now.  To perceive something new the churches must find a new route based upon trust and faith.  They must trust one another and have faith that by stepping out together they will discover a new ecumenical vision.  I have called this dimension of ecumenism transformative reception.

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.

Wesley's Understanding of Ecumenism

The modern ecumenical movement is typically traced back to the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh 1910.  I haven't seen anything in print about the history of ecumenism before that date.  There certainly must have been attempts to bring the traditions together although doctrinal controversies and nationalism must have made this difficult to support.

It is remarkable that Wesley drew on five traditions in developing his innovative take on the Christian faith.  Runyon examines each of the traditions he has identified on the pages following page 207 of The New Creation.  The five traditions he lists are Puritanism, Anglicanism, Moravian Lutheran Pietism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.  He writes on page 213:

It is not surprising, therefore, that the claim has been advanced that Wesley combines the Protestant emphasis upon justification with the Catholic emphasis upon sanctification.  There is a certain cogency to this claim, but it seems more accurate to say that after 1738 he placed the Lutheran doctrine of justification within the context of a doctrine of sanctification derived ultimately from Eastern patristic sources.  Although parallels to western Catholic sources are clear, important distinctive features are traceable to the Eastern Fathers, and this background needs to be recovered to place Wesley properly in context.

Modern Methodism has always professed a strong affinity to ecumenism and possibly its origins in the leadership of John Wesley has something to do with it.  Certainly his emphasis upon his Three Grand Scriptural Doctrines suggests a way forward that in effect overlooks the major differences and focuses upon what Wesley saw as the common features of all Christian traditions.  This is a thought developed in his sermon 'The Catholic Spirit'.  It is difficult to say whether this approach has any mileage today.