The Ecumenical Imperative

A consortium like the Boston Theological Institute works best insofar as it is connected in specific ways with its constituent members, connected to a larger theological vision and a part of an effort to find cooperation within the recognized diversity of its member schools. The basic mission of the BTI is articulated in its Mission Statement. This consortium works best as it is theologically and pragmatically grounded and understands why it exists, how it benefits consortia member schools, and how it can begin to work its way into its own unique future.

Apart from its member schools, the BTI works in conscious alignment with such organizations as are found through the following connections:
• Contact the Massachusetts Council of Churches.
• For additional contacts, see Global Connections.

An "ecumenical imperative" is shaped both by the history of the ecumenical movement as well as by a "wider" ecumenism," the importance of interfaith relations. Both aspects of this imperative are lodged in a “Changing Ecumenical Landscape,” such as demographic shifts in patterns of Christian global identity and denominational alignments. Social change has served to push the importance of interfaith agendas, particularly in a time when the religious “other” is shaped by stereotyping and fear.

Additionally, new social realities are calling us to deeper theological reflection; the many new service and justice groups that have emerged in the modern world, an explosive growth of non-governmental organizations since WWII, challenge us to new patterns of association and networking in today's world.  Many of these organizations, Christian or church-based in origin, are now often secular. They are doing the traditional work of humanitarian aid often associated with Christian mission, asking us to seek together the goal of human flourishing, for Christians as expressed in John 10:10b, “that we might have life and have it more abundantly.”

1. The Ecumenical Movement

The BTI can be said to be embedded in the larger concerns of the ecumenical movement which, since the Second Vatican Council (1962 through 1965) has promoted the pursuit of theological studies in ways that advance issues pertaining to Christian unity. The word “ecumenism” is derivative of “oikos” which, from the Greek, means “household. The word arises in Christian significance with reference to the first councils of the universal church, called ecumenical councils. In the twentieth century the word found new significance with respect to the movement for unity among the Christian churches in what has come to be called the Ecumenical Movement, often seen to center around the World Council of Churches and its periodic General Assemblies, and around the text found in John 17:20-21. The ecumenical movement, in this sense, is to be distinguished from inter-religious movements, sometimes called the “wider ecumenism.”

• Jesus’ Prayer for His Disciples: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”
• Statement of Faith, World Council of Churches: Often called the "flag ship of the ecumenical movement, "The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit." The implications of this are set forth in periodic General Assemblies of the member churches. See the WCC website.

2. The Wider Ecumenism: Interfaith and Inter-Religious Work

 (For further on this in relation to the BTI, see section entitled "Inter-Religious Dialogue" on this website.)

An ecumenical imperative for inter-faith education is appropriate for seminaries and divinity schools for a number of reasons.  The world in which seminarians and divinity school students find themselves is religiously pluralistic and the only way their education will be relevant to today’s world will be if it incorporates multi-religious education.  Future clergy face congregations in which interreligious marriage has become more common and parishioners are challenging traditional religious boundaries by identifying with more than one tradition.  Lay people raise questions about how to raise children in multi-religious homes and how to understand the religious practices of their neighbors and co-workers.  Without multi-religious education, clergy find themselves answering these questions from a place of ignorance.  If nothing else, multi-religious education should equip seminarians and divinity school students with the knowledge of what they do not know and where to direct their future parishioners for answers.

Beyond the pastoral concerns raised by the religiously pluralistic society in which seminarians and divinity school students find themselves, multi-religious education provides immense opportunity for theological growth.  The presence of the religious other, physically present as fellow students or intellectually through study of another tradition, raises new theological questions and calls for deep contemplation of historically traditional answers.  Theologians of all religions are challenged to examine their tradition and not accept any historical position or doctrine unexplained.  Multi-religious education creates a climate for theological renewal and creativity, bringing vitality and relevance to a field many label static and removed from everyday life.

Religion is also playing an increasingly important role in the public and political arenas.  Conflicts between national bodies are framed as conflicts between religious communities as a group’s religious identity becomes synonymous with their political affiliation.   Debates on social issues like the role of men and women in society, homosexuality, abortion, and the death penalty are supported with religious arguments.  In this multi-religious world, an understanding of foundational religious beliefs is increasingly important in order to mediate these conflicts and find ways of communicating across religious traditions.  Multi-religious education is the medium which provides the resources needed for navigating religious fueled conflict, and seminarians and divinity school students should be equipped to be leaders in addressing these issues.

Central Features of the Ecumenical Movement

The Ecumenical Movement developed out of concerns within and among Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Anglican, and Evangelical and Pentecostal churches and ecclesial fellowships. Among Protestants, orientation to the World Council of Churches and the World Evangelical Fellowship has often shaped other patterns of relationship. An additional way to understand the shifting contours in contemporary ecumenism is to structure thinking around the three primary patterns of Christian and ecumenical work, around issues of “faith and order,” “life and work,” and “mission.” Commissions of churches or agencies and interests around these three areas have been determinative of the structure of the World Council of Churches, frequently seen as the “banner ship” of ecumenism. However, these areas also shape other patterns of Christian cooperation and bi-lateral church relationships as well as wider religious engagement. An encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (1920) called for deeper Christian dialogue, structured in parallel fashion to the new League of Nations. Eventually the reforming council of the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican II (1962-1965) would also raise up afresh the question of Christian unity with concern for issues of Faith and Order, Life and Work, and the nature of Mission. This course is structured around these three determinative concerns. We begin with questions of faith and order – but also with the recognition that there are many overlapping patterns and concerns.

Ecumenical work that is oriented to “Faith and Order” deals with the discussion surrounding Christian belief and the ordering of church life and ministry. Faith and Order issues were framed with the formation of a movement that took up these issues between 1910 and 1948, or the period bounded by the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh (1910), with the formation of the International Missionary Council, and formation of the WCC (1948). The 1910 convention of the (Anglican) Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA called for a joint conference of churches to discuss questions of Faith and Order. Through the leadership of Charles H. Brent, this eventually led to the first world conference on Faith and Order in 1927 in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Faith and Order Commission would become one of the founding impulses for the World Council of Churches.

Similarly, ecumenical work that is oriented to the “Life and Work” movement of churches arose in the midst of the social changes that were overtaking the societies of Europe and North America in the early third of the 20th century. Concerned initially with questions of peace and justice, the movement broadened out to take up issues of an economic, social and moral nature. By 1920 plans were underway through the leadership of Archbishop Nathan Söderblom of the Church of Sweden for a conference on Life and Work which would take place in Stockholm in 1925. While at times in tension with the movement of Faith and Order, the Life and Work movement together with F&O were instrumental in the formation of the WCC in 1948. In the book Costly Discipleship, the point is made that ethical engagement is an expression of deep ecclesial agreement or disagreement (p. ix). It is in this light that issues raised by the Orthodox community of churches can be seen as bridging concerns of F&O and L&W.

Finally, mission became an ecumenical priority in the 20th century. Ecumenical missionary conferences in places as disparate as Madras, India, and New York City, USA, were precursors of the influential world missionary conference held at Edinburgh, 1910. Affirming a commitment to make Christ known to the whole world, a movement formed out of this conference under the influence of Methodist John R. Mott to develop a unitive effort on the part of the different Protestant denominations through the formation of the International Missionary Council (1921). Together with the World Alliance of YMCAs and YWCAs and World Student Christian Federation and Inter-Varsity Fellowship significant work was done in the ensuing years. While the post WWII years saw the formation of a host of “faith” missions, the missionary efforts of oldline Protestant denominations, insofar as they were united in the IMC, became a third strand of the WCC from 1961-1990 as the Department of World Mission and Evangelism of the WCC. Global social change and evolving theological thought has drawn into this movement deepening questions of gospel and culture and has raised in new ways the question of the relationship of Christianity and other living religious traditions.

The question of mission has inevitably given the churches a global vision and horizon. Robert Schreiter suggests that the very idea of catholicity” is “the theological equivalent of globalization.” While there are many definitions of globalization, religion is often a factor. Peter Berger even argues that “evangelical Protestantism, especially in its Pentecostal version, is the most important popular movement serving…as a vehicle of cultural globalization” (Many Globalizations, p. 8). Global realities are shaping church thought and life in North America in the domain of economic justice, health, race, and peacemaking.

Ecumenism Today

Contemporary ecumenical thinking and work is undergoing many transitions. In his influential book, Ecumenism in Transition: A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement? (1991), former General Secretary Konrad Raiser argues that modern ecumenism has been shaped by two previous paradigms:

1) An international order based on Christian values in which the church is all in all: The first impulse for church cooperation, or proto-ecumenism, grew out of late nineteenth-century Protestantism and appeared as a synthesis between Christianity and western culture. Interestingly, Samuel Huntington writes (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996): "By 1910 [the year of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, often referred to as the symbolic beginning of the ecumenical movement] the world was more one, politically and economically, than at any other time in human history" (51). And then followed WWI, which might be called a Christian civil war among Protestant Britain, Catholic France, and Orthodox Russia against Protestant Germany, Catholic Austria, and Orthodox Bulgaria. The Russian Revolution and the secularization of the West gave further definition to this period as did the economic crisis of 1930s, the emergence of fascism in the heart of "Christian Europe", the collapse of colonialism, and an abrupt end to the China mission. (See Lesslie Newbigin: "The WCC was born in the death-throes of 'Christendom.'" In "A Missionary's Dream," The Ecumenical Review 42 [January 1991]: 4).

2) A second paradigm was framed by the idea of Christ as the center of universal history, with the church as the primary instrument of God's saving mission: The second paradigm is that of "Christocentric universalism," a phrase that Raiser takes from Willem Visser't Hooft: At the center of God's plan of salvation is God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, with "the church as the chosen instrument of the world-embracing saving work of Christ" (in Raiser, p. 37). "To put it another way, the church proclaims to the world that it stands under the lordship of Christ, and it demonstrates the credibility of that claim by its visible unity as well as its ministry of word and deed through the oikoumene - a vision that brings together unity, service, and mission" (See p. 110 in Michael Kinnamon, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How it has been Impoverished by its Friends, Chalice Press, 2003). Raiser writes that this paradigm gave momentum and direction to the churches after WWII, it gave a vision of the church's nature and purpose in the aftermath of Christendom, and it was effective in challenging the "cultural religion" of Western Protestantism and in opposing the Nazis. In Raiser's opinion, this vision has lost its compelling power as a result of historical developments, including, the growth of religious pluralism in traditionally Christian societies which challenges christocentric language, the rise of ecological awareness that challenges the focus on human history, and the diversity of culture and confession in the churches that challenges notions of unity as consensus. According to Raiser, this paradigm is dogmatic and unhistorical. It plays down the "messiness" of history.

3) Accordingly, a third paradigm is necessary. This will be one that sees the church as one community among many in God's oikoumene. This new paradigm has three major features as developed by Raiser: a) It is more trinitarian in its understanding that stresses God's universal covenant, the interrelatedness of all humanity in God's coming reign; b) Its central focus is on the whole creation, understood as a web of reciprocal relationships. And 3) it promotes an understanding of church that minimizes agreement in faith and emphasizes the fellowship (koinonia) of those who are different. The controlling image (borrowed from Philip Potter) is the "household (oikos) of God," characterized by dialogue, hospitality, and acts of sharing and solidarity."

Contemporary ecumenical debate is shaped around many of the points raised in this third paradigm. For example, Michael Kinnamon writes that Raiser develops his idea of three paradigms along the line of the theological typology: exclusivist, inclusivist, and pluralist orientations to inter-religious dialogue (terminology borrowed from Alan Race, Christians and Religious Pluralism: Patterns in the Christian Theology of Religions (1983) and others. While Kinnamon finds some value here, he also notes the criticism raised of Raiser’s paradigm by persons such as Methodist theologian Geoffrey Wainwright who argues that the Uppsala Assembly, a positive turning point in Raiser estimation, is where Wainwright feels the WCC went astray, losing touch with its primary concern for the church and its focus on Christ. Wainwright writes that Raiser (and the WCC) continued to go down the wrong fork in the road. (See his review in Mid-Stream 31 (April 1992): 169-73. Additionally, Jeffrey Gros (Sec., US Catholic Bishops' Conference) has written that Raiser truncates the ecumenical vision by failing to hold in tension the struggle to realize the visible unity of the church as a community of shared faith and Eucharistic fellowship and the struggle to realize a human community of justice and peace. "His book can be considered a polemic against the wholeness advocated by the WCC." (See his review in The Christian Century, July 29-AugustS, 1992; p. 718). Finally, the Lesslie Newbigin wrote of Raiser's thesis that it ignores the missionary movement and, thus, radically distorts ecumenical history. (See his review in One in Christ, 29, n. 3 [1993]: 274-275.)

Raiser has responded by noting further consideration (at Harare, 1998), that his point is not so much a "paradigm shift" where a new paradigm replaces and older one, but of integrating into earlier expressions a more comprehensive perspective that meets contemporary challenges and contradictions.

Shifting Patterns in American Religious Life

Studies such as that by the Alban Institute, “The Leadership Situation Facing American Congregations” (2001) alert us to the need to understand more carefully these shifting patterns of religious life in America, particularly with reference to the dominant expression of religion in the United States, that of the Christian churches. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches are experiencing their own internal tensions. Among ecumenical agencies recent attention has been drawn to the changing influence of the National Council of Churches and the changing presence of the World Council of Churches in the United States. New organizations are emerging such as Christian Churches Together in the U. S. A.

Among Protestants one might take note of developing ecumenical ventures, renewal and reform movements, and other institutes or study centers that seek to relate issues of church and state. Among the first grouping, one might consider a revitalized National Council of Churches. Then, too, there is the North American Commission on Faith and Order (William Rusch), Evangelicals and Catholics Together (Tom Oden, John Neuhaus, and Timothy George), the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology (Carl Braaten and Robert Jensen), the National Academy of Ecumenists, and the Center for Theological Inquiry (Wallace Alston, Robert Jenson), etc. Among movements of renewal one might cite Sojourners Fellowship (Jim Wallis) the Biblical Witness Fellowship, various Confessing Church movements (Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) and various “Center” movements. Finally, among the latter are a variety of movements concerned about addressing issues of church and state from the older and venerable institute of that name to newer movements of the left and right, such as the Institute on Religion and Democracy (Thomas Oden and Diane Knippers), the more centrist Center for Public Justice (James Skillen), and People for the American Way (Norman Lear, Ralph Neas).

The contemporary church is not one but is fragmented by theological dispute, historical animosity, and social alienation at a time when united Christian and religious effort is required for dealing with significant global crises. The Ecumenical Movement has been one of the momentous movements of the twentieth century that has worked to reverse human division. Parallel in development but with a different theological vision is the Parliament of World Religions. Other “Grand Narratives” arose out of the devastation of the Second World War in the Twentieth Century. Yet, like the United Nations, many of these appear to have diminished currency and value at just the time they are needed most. The Twenty-first Century calls for a new ecumenical imperative in the face of the forces that are pulling us apart as societies, within our churches and in our personal lives.