wfn.org | Yale Conference explores future of ecumenical movement

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2000-037

Yale Conference explores future of ecumenical movement

by David Zscheile

     (ENS) International church leaders and theologians gathered 
at Yale University February 4-6 to discuss the future of the 
ecumenical movement in the 21st century. The Yale Conference on 
Ecumenism: Justification and the Future of the Ecumenical 
Movement brought together key players from the Anglican, 
Lutheran, Reformed and Roman Catholic traditions to reflect upon 
the Joint Declaration on Justification, signed in October 1999 by 
the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church. 

     The Joint Declaration, the first international agreement 
ever signed by the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, is 
considered by many to be the most important ecumenical 
development of the 20th century. It brings to an end four 
centuries of mutual condemnations by the two churches.

     The conference presented the first significant opportunity 
to raise the question of whether the Anglican and Reformed 
traditions might also enter into the Joint Declaration on 
Justification. The Rev. William Rusch, director of the Commission 
on Faith and Order of the National Council of Churches and an 
organizer of the conference, asked in his introductory remarks 
whether the bilateral agreement on justification might become 
multi-lateral as a vehicle for moving forward ecumenical 
relations among the traditions.

Holding hands

     In his keynote address, the Rev. Walter Kasper, a leading 
Roman Catholic theologian and officer of the Pontifical Council 
for the Promotion of Christian Unity at the Vatican, remarked of 
the Joint Declaration, "We held our hands together as churches, 
and we wish to let go never again." Kasper, who made his first 
visit to the United States for the conference, went on to offer a 
conception of ecumenism grounded in the Trinity. "Our unity in 
reconciled diversity is an image of the triune God," he said. 

     Kasper charted three frontiers for ecumenism: the 
interpretation of Scripture; ecclesiology and ministry; and the 
need for a new common language in which to express the core of 
the gospel. He noted that the language of the 16th-century 
debates on justification is no longer relevant to most Christians 
today. 

     Sir Henry Chadwick, former dean of Christ Church, Oxford, 
and a leading Anglican ecumenist, acknowledged numerous areas of 
agreement among the four traditions but also spoke of the 
historical difficulty between Anglicans, the Eastern Orthodox and 
Roman Catholics over the issue of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
According to Chadwick, the question of church authority will 
continue to remain significant in future ecumenical dialogue.

     Gabriel Fackre, former professor of theology at Andover 
Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts, and one of 
the leading ecumenists in the community of Reformed churches in 
the United States, responded from that perspective. Michael Root, 
professor of systematic theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in 
Columbus, Ohio, and former director of the Lutheran Ecumenical 
Institute in Strasbourg, France, responded from the Lutheran 
tradition. 

New model for future?

     Dean William Franklin of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, 
an Anglican representative in Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue, 
noted that the setting of the conference signified an important 
development in ecumenical relations. "The fact that the 
university was the context for the discussion, with church 
leaders, theologians and students participating together, opens 
up a new model for the future," Franklin said. "As an inter-
traditional divinity school, Yale offered a perfect setting for 
dialogue about how different traditions can learn, worship and 
work together." 

     George Lindbeck, professor emeritus of theology at Yale and 
a Lutheran theologian, gave in his opening remarks an overview of 
the history and significance of ecumenical theology at Yale. For 
him the conference constituted a revival within the academy of 
ecumenical theology, which he described as having been 
"relatively dormant" in the past few decades.

     The conference was sponsored through a joint partnership of 
Yale University Divinity School, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale 
and the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of 
Churches. Among the church leaders attending were Bishop 
Christian Krause, head of the Lutheran World Federation, George 
Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
America, Robert Isaksen, bishop of the New England Synod of the 
E.L.C.A, and David Perry, director of ecumenical relations for 
the Episcopal Church. 

     Yale faculty participants included Margaret Farley, 
president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, L. 
Serene Jones, David Kelsey, Gene Outka, Letty Russell, Miroslav 
Volf and Anna Williams.

     In the conference's final session, church leaders, faculty 
and students set forth as a next step the hope of organizing a 
North American conference on faith and order. Such an event has 
not occurred in thirty years.

     Yale Divinity School students representing different 
traditions played an integral role in the organization of the 
conference, which was held in conjunction with Lutherans in 
Diaspora, the annual gathering of Lutheran seminarians on the 
East Coast. The conference culminated in an ecumenical vespers 
service led by students.

--David Zscheile is director of media and church relations at 
Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.