wfn.org | Churches must be prophetic and catholic, say

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theologians at ecumenical gathering
August 2, 1996
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: Clifford L. Willis
Cliff_Willis.parti@ecunet.org
     
96b-68    

     CRAIGVILLE, Mass. -- No church can be truly "prophetic"
unless it is also truly "catholic," theologians said at the
annual Craigville Colloquy on Cape Cod last month. And when
prophecy and tradition appear to be in conflict, the church
should be "a place for civil dialogue and responsible
discourse," one of the speakers said.

     Meeting July 15 to 19 at the Craigville Conference
Center, this year's event drew representatives from the UCC,
the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the Roman
Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran,
Presbyterian and Unitarian traditions.

     Traditionally, the Craigville Colloquy is concerned
with the relationship between faith and practice. This
year's event was no exception. Its theme, "How can we be
catholic and prophetic?" centered on the tensions between
prophecy and tradition.

     "The church will not have the power to be prophetic
unless it recovers its faith, its tradition," said the Rev.
Paul A. Crow Jr. of Indianapolis, keynote speaker and
president of the Council on Christian Unity of the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ).

     Crow said the prophetic church is also catholic because
the church "is not a voluntary association but the creation
of God for the redemption of the world.

     "It must be visibly one because its Lord and Savior is
one," he said.

     Many of the pastors and theologians meeting in
Craigville were activists in labor struggles, solidarity
movements and campaigns against racism. No one questioned
the proposition that "to be truly catholic, the church must
be prophetic." But many said the reverse was also true: to
be prophetic, the church must be catholic.

     "Catholic" is a Greek word meaning "universal," but not
in its modern sense of "worldwide," Crow said. "The church
is catholic not only because it exists in every place or
embraces all cultures and nationalities, but because the
atonement of Christ is universal. The atoning love of God
expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is
for everyone," he said. 

     "The church lives in solidarity with human suffering,"
Crow said. "Its unity in Christ is a sign for the unity of
the human family, and its energy for prophetic witness comes
from Jesus Christ."

     To be catholic, many theologians said, a prophetic
community has to be accountable to the presence of the Holy
Spirit in scripture and tradition. One of the small working
groups put it this way: "The catholic church is universal in
space and time. It therefore exists in continuity with the
communion of saints in all times and places. It claims as
its own the whole tradition, and listens for the word of God
in the entire canon of scripture."

     The church has to live in "the past, the present and
the future," the small group said in its report. "There can
be no prophecy apart from tradition. But tradition is not
static power. Then it would be a merely human tradition, not
the living work of the Holy Spirit. The tradition is a
living tradition because it points to the living God whose
reign even now is coming into history."

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