The Present State of Ecumenism

THERE IS a curious ambiguity about the ecumenical situation at present. Optimists and pessimists seem drawn up in confrontation, regardless of church allegiance or lack of it. One need only survey the present scene and compare it with the situation a decade ago for it to become evident that the ecumenical euphoria of the 1960's has drastically diminished. In the terms of Dr. Lukas Vischer, director of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, "There is clearly a discernible tendency towards a certain mistrust of the ecumenical movement." ¹

There is ample evidence, chapter and verse, in support of this statement. While it is true that most churches are increasingly involved in cooperative projects of one kind or another, centrifugal powers are also at work. New controversies and new conflicts, both spiritual and political, have made it increasingly difficult for churches to resist the temptation to withdraw into themselves. More and more of them feel that they have enough to do in coping with their own immediate problems without allowing their lives to be further complicated by the concrete demands of Christian unity.

The consultation on church union is losing its power to arouse and compel the churches. Both the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the National Council of Churches, plagued with budgetary cutbacks, reductions in the number of personnel, and decreased financial support of their denominational members, have lost their momentum. On the "grass roots" level, Christians still carry on dialogs, but after the initial attempts, enthusiasm frequently wavers. Many clergy and laity seem to be discouraged with the whole business.

This malaise is, on the face of it, surprising. For judging the ecumenical movement from the perspective of its starting point, it is apparent that amazing things have been and are happening. For years, the ecumenical movement was primarily a White- Anglo-Saxon-Protestant male domain, a product of the Western world. Today, Eastern Orthodox churches are taking an increasingly important place in the movement, with the Roman Catholic Church an active and sometimes threatening participant.

Even outside the World Council of Churches, nonecumenical churches seem interested in forming their own para-ecumenical organizations in an effort to promote their views. Last summer, in Lausanne, Switzerland, for instance, some 3,000 selected evangelicals individual leaders and representatives from more than 50 free church groups met at the Inter national Congress on World Evangelization, under the leadership of Billy Graham, to discuss the problems of evangelism in the modern world. They considered, some have said "threatened," starting their own worldwide organization with a view to preaching the gospel to the whole world. A "continuation committee" was established, though Congress officials maintain that "it will not be a power structure to compete with the WCC." Observers have repeatedly described the gathering as one of the most ecumenical meetings they have ever seen.

Gradual Broadening of Term

Gradually the content of the term ecumenical is being broadened, and accordingly the WCC has taken steps to broaden its own horizons. In May, 1974, for instance, in Sri Lanka, Ceylon, representatives from five world religions, including Moslems, Hindus, and Buddhists, met under the aegis of the World Council unit on dialog with Peoples of Living Faiths and Ideologies to discuss cooperative action across religious lines in solving world problems. The Vatican Secretariat for non-Christians has also launched a worldwide campaign of dialog with non-Christians. The goal here, too, is to encourage "more friendly relations based on the one-Fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of peoples."

Internationally, nonwhites have become increasingly active in ecumenism. Although by no means inactive in past years, there are today far more men and women from the Third World giving leadership on committees, commissions, and assemblies of an ecumenical character. While the first two general secretaries of the WCC were a Dutch man and a North American, the cur rent secretary is a West Indian, Dr. Philip Potter.

This change in leadership from the West to the Third World has led to a noticeable shift in the priorities of the World Council from theological timidity to a bold emphasis on justice and liberation. One need only remember the great furor caused when the World Council's Program to Combat Racism made grants to liberation movements especially in South Africa to realize how the WCC has altered its approach to the task of Christian re union. In fact, the most striking force in the ecumenical movement today is the growing conviction that the struggle for the unity of the church is not un related to the total human struggle and, therefore, racial and social justice in the world.

With this new emphasis and the demise of the older generation of ecumenists has come the rise of a new breed. This new leadership comes generally from Latin or black stock and less frequently from the old established theological schools. The new generation of ecumenists tends generally to have less respect for the institutional character of the ecumenical movement and to suggest that the ecumenical structures that were worked out in the 1940's and 1950's be adapted to new tasks and new situations.

This mildly anti-institutional and free-wheeling attitude harbors obvious dangers for the ecumenical enterprise. There is no doubt that the WCC could use the stimulus of adventurous spirits, but to turn one's back on the historical roots of ecumenism and try to reduce it to a loose association of voluntary organizations with hardly any integral relation to the corporate structure of the church would be a definite setback from the WCC's original aim.

It may explain, however, what is actually happening around the ecumenical world, i.e., the increasing emphasis on the local and regional aspects of ecumenism. While official organs continue to dialog with one another, enough developments on the local or "grass roots" level are occurring to revive the hope of optimists. If one can believe official reports, there are quite a few things going on: churches cooperate and witness together regarding social issues, racial justice, and peace; joint television programs and inter-faith services at Thanksgiving or Christmas multiply. There are other ecumenical practices increasingly popular, such as the sharing of church facilities, the sponsoring of ecumenical lay witness weekends, and the forming of covenants in which each participant church pledges to include in its worship services prayers for the reunion of its parent churches.

There are failures, too, to be sure, and not infrequently denominations or congregations, after a few attempts at sharing, draw such criticism from their constituencies that they are barred from any further participation. But by and large, where it is still a vision, the ecumenical concern has a tendency to express itself in local groups, some times small local groups, which have opened the door to a tangible, personal kind of unity that leaves people cold to the idea of large ecclesiastical unities.

Plans for Merger

This ought not to be understood to mean, however, that the national and international dialogs and plans of union by "professional" ecumenists have been forsaken. While it is true that zeal for church unity as traditionally understood has simmered down to lukewarm indifference, ecumenical leaders in all parts of the world continue unabated to foster denominational mergers and church unity. Let me just call my readers' attention to a sampling of proposed and actuated plans of union. More de tailed information is easily available. ²

In Canada, members of a joint Lutheran theological committee have begun work on a document detailing the theological basis for a proposed single Lutheran Church of Canada. New Zealand's Anglicans, having rejected participation in a five-church union by a very close vote, will try again in 1976. For the first time in European history several years of consultations between Lutheran and Reformed churches in Europe made possible the formulation of the "Leuenberg Concordia" agreement, describing their common understanding of the gospel.

In England, major inter-church talks on the ultimate creation of a "United Church of Britain" aroused high hopes when representatives of all participating denominations issued a call for a commission to expedite their work. The call came in a communique issued at the close of a third meeting in London of representatives from the Anglican, Roman Catholic, United Reformed, Baptist, and Methodist churches, the Churches of Christ, and a few smaller denominations. Yet, at about the same time, the Roman Catholic Church indicated its decision not to join the twenty-church membership of the British Council of Churches at the present time. The Roman Catholic decision was based on a concern to remain free, at all times, to declare the full teachings of the Catholic Church without reserve.

In the United States, Lutheran and Roman Catholic scholars have recently reached a startling convergence on papal primacy. After expressing a general consensus on such basic topics as baptism, the eucharist, and the ministry, their "Common Statement" declares that the papacy, "renewed in the light of the Gospel, need not be a barrier to reconciliation" of the two churches. ³ A few months earlier the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission issued a major statement expressing basic agreement on the ministry and ordination.

Spokesmen for the Roman Catholic- Eastern Orthodox theological consultation in the United States have agreed that they look forward to "full, visible communion one in faith and able to celebrate the Eucharistic ministry." Elsewhere, ecumenical dialogs proceed among Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants in India; among Anglicans and Lutherans in England; among Roman Catholics and Baptists in the United States.

In spite of these developments, which should make the most pessimistic ecumenist take heart, there has been very little achieved in the sense of organic union or theological-sacra mental unity. Church unity is no longer a cause, no longer a compelling vision. One can't help but agree with Lukas Vischer that "there is clearly something in the nature of a spiritual emigration from the ecumenical movement." ⁴ Dr. J. Robert Nelson, chairman of the working committee of the WCC's Faith and Order Commission, refers to it as "ecumenopause." ⁵

The feeling of concern is genuine. And if we take the criticisms leveled at the World Council its "theological superficiality," its "dissolving of the vertical in the horizontal," its "activism," its "overemphasis on purely social concerns," and so on and collate them with the fact that in many places more and more people feel no need of any church, the suspicion of "malaise" and "regression" becomes very strong. Committed to the purposes of the movement, ecumenists still refuse to regard the current lull as anything more than a temporary fad, a rest period before another surge toward Christian unity. For them the movement for unity is not over, it has just begun.

Much might depend on the future course the WCC will adopt. Will it, in answer to the requests of a large segment of its constituency and in order to help the churches achieve greater fellowship with one another, return to a more deliberate effort to overcome confessional differences and give priority to a consensus concerning the central questions of the Christian faith? Or will it, under the increasing pressure of Third World representatives, decide to carry on its ministry to the churches by rethinking its understanding of unity?

The temptation is strong to regard the traditional quest for unity as a doubtful and questionable undertaking and, to deal with "a far greater range of questions," to search for ways and means of removing the obstacles to genuine fellowship that have arisen from modern man's struggle against political, cultural, and social antagonisms, and thus bring about unity.

"Why discuss unity," asked Lukas Vischer last July in Accra, "when surely the priority must be to eliminate injustice, to secure rights and give voice to those who have hitherto been denied it? The only unity worthy of the name is a fellowship lived out in practice." ⁶

The task may simply be beyond the WCC's resources. It may have to con fine itself, if it chooses this approach, to a small selection of typical questions. In any event, after November, 1975, when the World Council of Churches meets in Nairobi, Kenya, for its fifth General Assembly, it should become clearer which voices it is planning to listen to even if some of them are discordant. Readers of THE MINISTRY, with their interest in the development of Biblical prophecy, will follow with great attention the World Council of Churches' attempt to tackle the pros pects and problems of its future as it prepares to enter the last quarter of the century.