wfn.org | New foundation calls for ecumenical theological summit in 2004

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Note #6734 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

29-June-2001
01221

New foundation calls for ecumenical theological summit in 2004

'Faith and Order' conference would address unity issues

by Jean Caffey Lyles

NEW YORK CITY - A newly formed ecumenical foundation has called on Christian
churches in Canada and the United States to gather in 2004 for a "Second
Conference on Faith and Order in North America."

	More than 75 church leaders, pastors, theologians and other religion
scholars have signed a statement endorsing the call, said the Rev. William
G. Rusch, executive director of the Foundation for a Conference on Faith and
Order in North America. The meeting's theme will be "The Church: Its Faith
and Its Unity."

	The conference idea has been endorsed by the stated clerk of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly, the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick.

	"Faith and Order" is the term used in ecumenical settings to denote the
part of the ecumenical movement devoted to the theological issues that keep
churches divided and to the quest for Christian unity.

	The new foundation sent letters this spring to 328 Canadian and U.S. church
bodies inviting their participation. The letter said that that organizers of
the meeting and their consultants had determined that "no existing
institution in either country could undertake the preparatory task (for the
conference) with sufficient breadth and theological depth."

	The event will stand in the tradition of the first such U.S.-Canada "faith
and order" conference at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1957. It will also mark the 40th
anniversary year of the Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order at
Montreal, Quebec, as well as the tenth anniversary of the Fifth World
Conference on Faith and Order at Santiago de Compestelo, Spain. A location
and date for the gathering have not been selected.

	Foundation officers include as moderator Bishop Richard F. Grein, head of
the Episcopal Diocese of New York; secretary - Robert M. Franklin of the
Church of God in Christ and president of the historically black
Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta; and treasurer - Sister
Donna Geernaert, ecumenical officer for the Canadian Conference of Catholic
Bishops in Ottawa.

	Rusch, a Lutheran, was elected full-time executive director. A veteran
ecumenist and scholar, Rusch has served for five years as director of the
Commission on Faith and Order of the National Council of Churches. He
resigned the NCC post to assume the new foundation position.

	The foundation is unique among ecumenical organizations, Rusch said,
because it will bring together both Canadian and U.S. church leaders,
scholars, clergy and laypersons. Members of other ecumenical and parachurch
organizations and faculties of theological seminaries and Bible schools will
also be welcomed, he added. The foundation also expects to draw participants
from church bodies in Mexico.

	The board includes a broad spectrum of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant
members, including mainline, evangelical and Pentecostal leaders.
Presbyterian board members include the Rev. Thomas Gillespie, president of
Princeton Theological Seminary; the Rev. Portia Turner-Williams a college
professor in Durham, N.C.; and the Rev. Wallace Alston, director of the
Center for Theological Inquiry in Princeton, N.J.

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