wfn.org | Bossey Study

[Sheila MESA <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
13 November 1997

The following press release has been issued by the WCC's US Office:

STUDY REVEALS METHODS FOR SUCCESSFUL
CHURCH DIVERSITY

NEW YORK---At a time when North America is becoming ever more
diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and country of origin, its religious
congregations are in large part lagging behind.  They remain relatively
homogeneous or, if experiencing pluralism, do not have methods for
handling it successfully.  

The Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland, linked with the World
Council of Churches and the University of Geneva and known as
"Bossey", has just published findings from a study of its American
participants in a special supplement to the journal Theological Education.

Co-edited by John B. Lindner and Linda-Marie Delloff, the publication
breaks ground in proposing proven methods for church leaders to serve
effectively amidst growing religious and cultural diversity.  This study
and its publication were supported by two grants totaling $147,217 from
the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment, Inc., to the U.S. Conference of
the World Council of Churches.

Most religious bodies - whether Protestant, Catholic, liberal or
conservative - teach their tradition through similarity: gathering together
groups of like-minded individuals and reinforcing doctrine through
familiarity and repetition.  Yet this method may be out of step with the
realities of North American society today.

Indeed, the theological schools training clergy are themselves
experiencing considerable new diversity.  Yet, according to Dr. Heidi
Hadsell, former dean of McCormick Seminary in Chicago and the first
American woman to head the Ecumenical Institute, "The theological
seminaries supplying clergy for congregations are themselves becoming
more diverse; yet they, too, lack proven methods for taking full
advantage of the diversity.  We need to turn that diversity into an asset
that will serve our graduates well in a multicultural society."

The project studied hundreds of North American Ecumenical Institute
graduates who attribute to Bossey their success at encouraging and
managing diversity in their congregations.  The project identified and
defined the Institute's method of "ecumenical formation" teaching
Christians of varied persuasions, coming from around the globe, to
understand their overall unity.  The research team concluded that the
method would also work for other types of diversity characterizing the
current moment in North America: it could be equally effective in
congregations, at seminaries, and in other religious settings.

"The method has several parts that might at first sound contradictory,"
said the Rev. John B. Lindner, the project's coordinator and director of
the Ecumenical Development Initiative in New York.  They include seeking
community through "estrangement," learning a tradition by contrasting it
with others, and bringing the "world's agenda" very consciously into the
classroom.

Estrangement at Bossey occurs when students from a variety of
countries, cultures and religious traditions live and study together in an
intense atmosphere.  Recent participants have included a Syrian
Orthodox student from India, Roman Catholic students from Africa and
Protestant students from throughout the Third World.  This close
encounter leads, especially for North Americans, who are usually in the
minority at Bossey, to learn what it is like to be the "stranger"  not a
member of the dominant culture.  "This discomfort helps them to become
much more understanding of the strangers who later come to their
congregations seeking both inspiration and community," said Lindner.

"The Institute encourages people to grow stronger in their own religious
traditions by comparing and contrasting them with those of others.  Thus,
graduates go away not only feeling part of a larger whole, but also
strengthened in their own denomination or communion.  This finding
should reassure leaders of faith groups who worry that increasing
ecumenism or plurality in congregations will reduce or cancel out
denominational identity," Lindner said.

Bringing the world's agenda into the classroom involves letting world
events - happening especially in the home countries of the Bossey
participants - set the agenda at the Institute, rather than adhering
exclusively to a set of texts or other more traditional modes of learning. 
Thus, in recent years, such events as the demise of the Communist
system and strife in the Middle East and Africa have been much more
than background to the programs Institute students study and learn from.
 They have become the subject of learning, with the students being
teachers to each other as well as hearing from trained church historians,
theologians and ethicists.

Dr. Linda-Marie Delloff, the project's senior researcher, currently director
of publishing at The Alban Institute in Bethesda, Md., points out: "The
other key element of the "Bossey methodology" is that all learning
activities at the Institute revolve around shared worship and prayer.  A
regular, three-times daily discipline of jointly planned worship is the
backbone of life at the Institute.  This is important in a day and age when
many seminaries have de-emphasized worship or regular chapel
services as key parts of theological education."

The project team published its results in a special supplement of
Theological Education, the journal of the Association of Theological
Schools in the U.S. and Canada (Vol.34, Autumn 1997).  Contents
include:

The U.S. Bossey Assessment Project: An Introduction, John B. Lindner
and Linda-Marie Delloff;  Ecumenical Formation: A Methodology for a
Pluralistic Age, John B. Lindner; Embracing Estrangement, Linda-Marie
Delloff; Worship and Prayer in Ecumenical Formation, John H. Erickson
and Eileen W. Lindner; Learning a Religious Tradition: Identity by Contrast,
Bertrice Y. Wood; Does What Is Taught at Bossey Equal What Is
Learned?, Michael Gilligan; Two Agendas for Ecumenical Formation, Heidi
Hadsell.

Members of the team will in the coming months be discussing their work
in various presentations and gatherings, urging that seminaries,
congregations and other religious groupings seek to become laboratories
for experimenting with the method that has been so successful at the
Ecumenical Institute.

For more information, or for copies of the journal Theological Education,
contact Rev. John B. Lindner, Ecumenical Development Initiative, 475
Riverside Drive, Room 915, New York, NY 10115, 212-870-3260, E-Mail
JohnL@ncccusa.org.

**********
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 330, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but
works cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest governing body is the
Assembly, which meets approximately every seven years.  The WCC
was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is
headed by general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church
in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Press and Information Office
Tel:  (41.22) 791.61.52/51
Fax:  (41.22) 798 13 46
E-Mail: jwn@wcc-coe.org
http://www.wcc-coe.org

P.O. Box 2100
CH-1211 Geneva 2