wfn.org | COCU members to face issues of ministry

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Jan. 29, 1999	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York    10-71B{052}

NEW YORK (UMNS) -- If the new relationship approved by the nine member
communions of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) is to come to
fruition, issues of ministry must be resolved.

Members of what will be called Churches Uniting in Christ will begin by
working toward recognition of each other's ministries and, they hope, end
with a reconciliation of ministries.

Part of that will be a learning process, according to the Rev. Bruce
Robbins, top staff executive with the United Methodist Commission on
Christian Unity. He believes there was hesitation about the issue of
reconciliation during COCU's Jan. 20-24 plenary in St. Louis "because we
don't even know what each other's ministries are."

The timeline adopted calls for an expression of visible unity through public
inauguration of Churches Uniting in Christ in January 2002, with full
reconciliation of ministries in 2007.

Seven of the nine member communions - the United Methodist Church, Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, Christian Methodist
Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church and International Council of Community Churches - had
formally committed themselves to unity before the 1999 plenary.

But the Presbyterian Church (USA) had not been able to approve the required
constitutional amendments for the COCU covenanting proposal because of
ministry-related concerns, and the Episcopal Church had not adopted either
document necessary for the unity process.

The Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers, who has attended all COCU plenaries since
1972 either as a delegate or church staff member, said she had been
concerned about how the issue of the incomplete action by the Presbyterians
and Episcopalians would be resolved. "The question for me was whether or not
to proceed with seven churches who could go somewhere or whether to be with
all nine," she explained.

Powers, a United Methodist visitor at the January plenary, admitted that she
went into the meeting "angry at the Presbyterians" because of their ultimate
positions on the ministry issues. But her anger evaporated as she interacted
with Presbyterians in the "discerning groups" that discussed issues during
the plenary. "They helped me to better understand theologically the early
understanding the Presbyterians had about the church," she said.

She also was encouraged by the Episcopalian response to the plenary and
believes that communion's presiding bishop and new ecumenical officer will
make a serious effort to work on the new relationship.

Bishop William Boyd Grove, ecumenical officer for the United Methodist
Council of Bishops, said the plenary "achieved as much if not more as
anticipated going in."

The creation of Churches Uniting in Christ "calls for further work on the
reconciliation of ministry issue ... but a process was set up to do that
work, and all nine churches were committed to that process," he noted.

The process calls for the group's executive committee, of which Grove is a
member, to arrange a meeting of representatives of the nine communions to
clarify the meaning of reconciliation. The executive committee meets in
March.

"We have to know more clearly what reconciliation means for us before we can
implement recognition," Robbins said.

The report of COCU's theology commission states that recognition signifies
"the ordained ministry (and therefore ordained ministers) in each of the
nine communions are understood to be gifts of God and instruments of God's
grace." Recognition allows affirmation of ordained ministers but does not
imply interchangeability "except where polity or other agreements of member
communions permit."

Reconciliation, according to the theology commission, "is the act by and in
which each communion is able, by the grace of God, to proclaim that all the
ministries in member churches are one and the same ministry."

Robbins pointed out that even if reconciliation is achieved, denominations
would continue to follow their own standards and credentialing for
ordination. A minister from another communion who did not meet United
Methodist standards could not be appointed to a United Methodist church, he
added.

One of the stumbling blocks is that currently only the Episcopalians follow
what is known as the threefold order of ministry, affirmed by ecumenical
consensus in the Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry statement of the World
Council of Churches. The threefold order separates the orders of deacon,
elder and bishop.

In the United Methodist Church, Robbins said, there are two orders, deacon
and elder, with bishops belonging to the elder order. The Presbyterians "do
not recognize a third order of bishop in any personal sense," he added.

Another issue is that of the historic episcopate. "The origins of the church
by tradition go back to Jesus commissioning Peter ... and the establishment
of Peter as the bishop of Rome," Robbins explained. From the earliest days,
bishops were ordained by previous bishops in a way that included the
physical laying on of hands. The bishops, in turn, ordained all priests.
This became the "historic succession" of the episcopacy.

As an Anglican priest, John Wesley invoked a theological principle that
allowed elders to function as bishops in times of emergency, Robbins said.
The emergency, in Wesley's mind, was the "missional need" for pastors in
America. He ordained several himself, breaking the chain of historic
succession for what was to become the Methodist Church.

Recent dialogues with the Lutherans and other groups has demonstrated that
"the Episcopal Church has found ways to offer this gift (of historic
succession) without violating their own practice," Robbins said. For
example, one way would include the participation of Episcopal bishops in
consecration ceremonies for bishops of other communions.

In its report, the theology committee stated that "oversight, ministry and
structures of governance must exist in relation to the missional work of the
church. God's activity in the world must always be the object of such
structures. They are not ends in themselves.

"If we can claim this belief and confess our impasse on oversight, then
there is hope for eventual reconciliation," the committee concluded. "But if
we continue to hold that particular versions of the offices of ministry must
be the norm for all member churches, then the way ahead is difficult
indeed."

Grove said he is encouraged by the "ecumenical breakthroughs" and dialogues
outside of COCU that have occurred on these issues in the past decade. "I'm
hopeful that within 10 years, we will have reconciled our ministries and we
will be fully together as Churches Uniting in Christ."

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