Ecumenism in a Post-Denominational Age – Susan E. Davies

Which ecumenism?

Ecumenism

The term “ecumenism” generally signifies the inter-church organizations known as ‘conciliar ecumenism,’ constructed by the churches of competing empires in response to the divisive nature of their missionary work in the colonies.  After the 1910 Edinburgh World Missionary Conference, both the Faith and Order, and Life and Work movements emerged, leading to the current world, national and state Councils of Churches, as well as to Churches Uniting in Christ and other similar efforts.  As the authors of Introduction to the Ecumenical Movement put it, “ecumenism is a reform and renewal movement within the churches that is rooted in a search for a common mission, is nurtured by a common spirituality, is lived in common service, and is developed in the variety of cultural contexts in which the Church of Christ finds itself incarnated.”^[1] They say that ‘[t]here is one ecumenical movement, with its tensions and common hopes . . .”^[2]

Their claim of universality for “the” ecumenical movement is acknowledged by the historic churches of the North Atlantic, as well as the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.  The claim is not recognized by the churches of the National Association of Evangelicals, an inter-church organization which is adamantly not part of conciliar ecumenism.  The claim is also not accepted by most Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American churches, many of whom participate in white-dominated ecumenical organizations while maintaining their own intra- and inter-community ecumenical bodies.  As a group of Black U.S. theologians said in their 1984-5 report, “Toward a Common Expression of Faith: A Black North American Perspective,”

“We have  . . . a profound hermeneutical suspicion about any movement for unity that is dominated by North Atlantic attitudes and assumptions.  We have observed that when our white brothers and sisters speak of unity, they often mean being together on terms that carefully maintain their political, economic and cultural hegemony.  Unity is frequently confused with ‘Anglo-conformity’ — strict adherence to premises and perspectives based upon the world view and ethos of the North Atlantic community with its history of racial oppression . . .” ^[3]

Parallel analyses of and responses to ‘the ecumenical movement’ arise out of Asian American and Hispanic churches, churches of the Indian Nations, and other U.S. communities whose cultures and traditions are rooted in colonial and post-colonial contexts.

In the late 80s and 90s, under the leadership of theologian Letty Russell, study groups of U.S. Faith and Order worked to decenter the ‘dominant premises and perspectives’ by placing issues from the margins at the center of their work.  Thus, The Church with AIDS (1990) and Ending Racism in the Church (1998) each reported on what Christian faith and church order looked like when Christians living with the oppressive realities of AIDS and racism shaped the formative questions.  At its October 2010 meeting, the Faith and Order Commission again created a study group whose formative questions will be determined by Christians in churches on the margins rather than by those in more dominant positions.  While a very important step, the continuing need for such a study group acknowledges that the Faith and Order agenda remains dominantly North Atlantic and ‘Anglo-conforming.’

Post-Denominational Age

The denominational structures of the churches which form conciliar ecumenism are melting before our eyes.  In the U.S., white Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Reformed, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Uniting/United churches are all losing members and congregations.  At times, whole synods or dioceses move to a newly-formed more conservative ‘denomination’ of the same theological tradition.  Throughout these conciliar churches of the current empire, individual members are disappearing in record numbers.  As the churches shrink in their current forms, the type of ecumenism they have created is also fading.

At the same time, God is creating burgeoning churches in the Global South with new inter-church relationships, and new faith bodies in the North, such as Emergent Village.  Drawing on the resources of the whole Church, taking no prescribed shape, without a membership structure, Emergent Village is a web, “a growing, generative friendship among missional Christians seeking to love our world in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”

Emergent Village cohorts and groups have little in common with the questions addressed by conciliar ecumenism because they are not [yet] concerned about maintaining any historically specific boundaries. Rather, as Ken Howard, one of their bloggers who is an Episcopal priest, suggests, they shape their identities not by external boundaries but rather by their connections to Christ.  “As a ‘centered set, it finds its unity in [people’s orientation to] . . . the center of the set – Jesus Christ – and the extent to which they are in relationship with the One at the center.^[4] They do not identify with a particular position on theology, polity, the sacraments, worship, or ordination.

Ecumenism in a post-denominational age is a bit of an oxymoron.  The strand of ecumenism shaped by the white North Atlantic imperial denominations, as well as the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, is at a critical point.  Many national Protestant bodies are experiencing a slow death, although their traditions will continue in new, yet unborn, forms.  Some variation of the old divisions will resurface in other shapes, and new ‘ecumenical movements’ will take up those questions.  But this form of North Atlantic ecumenism will fade because most of the churches which created it are dying in their present shapes.  God is doing a new thing in the world.

^[2] Ibid., 4.

^[3] As cited in Mary R. Sawyer. Black Ecumenism: Implementing the Demands of Justice. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994, 5.  See also Black Witness to the Apostolic Faith, Shannon and Wilmore, editors, 1988.

^[4] Who defines the ‘extent’ and nature of that relationship to Christ?