wfn.org | COCU Gets Ready to Eye an Uncertain Future

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9-November-1998 
98351 
 
    COCU Gets Ready to Eye an Uncertain Future 
 
    by Jean Caffey Lyles 
 
ST. LOUIS-Representatives of an almost 40-year-old dialogue of nine U.S. 
Christian denominations will gather in here Jan. 20-24 to consider whether 
their churches are ready to take a major step toward Christian unity at the 
beginning of the 21st century. Among the nine are three historically 
African American church bodies. 
 
    Planners of the upcoming 18th Plenary of the Consultation on Church 
Union (COCU) say that the St. Louis meeting is crucial for the future of 
the ecumenical movement in the United States. 
 
    Plenary delegates will seek to craft a document suggesting to the 
churches the next steps for COCU, whose quest for a workable, acceptable 
model of "visible unity" began in the early 1960s. 
 
    It has been a full decade since the convening of  a Plenary, COCU's top 
legislative body. During those 10 years, member churches have studied and 
acted on COCU proposals, as well as engaging in other ecumenical dialogues 
and unity efforts. 
 
    The COCU initiative is "one of two proposals for full communion of 
churches now on the American table," said the Rev. Diane Kessler of Boston, 
executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches and chair of 
the Plenary's program and planning committee. The other proposal involves 
the Episcopal Church, a COCU member body, and the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in America (ELCA), a non-member body. 
 
    The consultation is also significant, Kessler said,  because it is 
currently the only multilateral dialogue in this country working toward an 
eventual goal of "full communion."  The ELCA, the Presbyterian Church 
(U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Reformed Church in 
America recently completed their "formula for agreement" establishing full 
communion between them. 
 
    "There is no other table like this one," added the Rev. Thomas E. Dipko 
of Cleveland. Without COCU's continuing life, no other multilateral unity 
conversation among different theological traditions would exist "at which 
African American churches could negotiate on an equal footing with 
predominantly white churches," said Dipko, a UCC official and that church's 
representative on the consultation's executive committee. 
 
    COCU dialogues involve Episcopal, Presbyterian, Disciples, United, 
Community and Methodist bodies, including the three predominantly African 
American denominations. 
 
    According to the Rev. Lewis H. Lancaster Jr. of Louisville, a PC(USA) 
minister who is interim general secretary, representatives of member 
denominations will report to the Plenary on official responses taken by 
their churches on "Churches in Covenant Communion."  That proposal was 
unanimously approved by the 17th COCU Plenary in 1988 in New Orleans and 
sent to member churches for their endorsement. 
 
    Eight of the nine church bodies have approved the document.  Though the 
PC(USA) approved the document, enabling amendments to the church's "Book of 
Order" to implement it failed. 
 
    Planners say the St. Louis meeting will address racism as a 
"church-dividing issue," considering a paper titled "A Call to Christian 
Commitment to Combat Racism."  Among other initiatives, the document 
proposes that churches "claim Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances . . . 
for dialogue leading to systemic change." 
 
    Delegates will also have in their preparatory materials a report from 
COCU's Theology Commission, which offers recommendations for a way forward 
for the consultation.  The commission is chaired by the Rev. Cynthia 
Campbell, a Presbyterian and president of McCormick Theological Seminary in 
Chicago. 
 
    Much of the work of the meeting -- in both small-group conversations 
and plenary deliberations -- will employ a style described by Kessler as a 
"discerning process" that is "less juridical, more dialogical and 
reflective" than standard parliamentary procedure.  The meeting will also 
revert to traditional rules of debate and decision-making when necessary 
for taking votes, she said. 
 
    Named as "process leaders" for the meeting are Bishop Susan Hassinger, 
leader of  United Methodism's Boston Area, and the Rev. Canon Edward 
Rodman, canon missioner for the Western Michigan Diocese of the Episcopal 
Church.  Both have extensive experience in guiding process for 
decision-making groups, including bodies of bishops, Kessler said. 
 
    A four-member drafting team of experienced ecumenical writers has been 
appointed to craft a document reflecting the collective thinking of Plenary 
delegates and to suggest COCU's next steps toward "visible unity." 
 
    If a document is approved by the Plenary and subsequently endorsed by 
the denominations' highest decision-making assemblies, the outcome could 
lead, early in the 21st century, to a new relationship for expressing unity 
among the churches.  Various models of unity have been studied, debated and 
revised repeatedly by the consultation's dialogue participants since the 
early 1960s. 
 
    COCU leaders emphasize that current thinking in no way envisions a 
structural "mega-merger" or the creation of a "superchurch" by the 
multiracial body of denominations -- an assurance that has in past years 
often been misunderstood or mistrusted at the grass-roots level of the 
churches. 
 
    Some COCU participants say new ideas for COCU's next steps were sparked 
in part by the progress made in other ecumenical dialogues -- notably 
Lutheran-Reformed and Lutheran-Episcopal. 
 
    COCU, which held its first plenary in 1962, has written successive 
proposals to bring into being what founders envisioned as "the Church of 
Christ Uniting."  The 1988 "Churches in Covenant Communion" describes the 
unity sought as a "covenanting" among churches that would preserve current 
denominational structures while enabling shared mission, ministry and 
sacraments, and mutual accountability. 
 
    COCU had its origins in a proposal made by the late Rev. Eugene Carson 
Blake, a high-ranking Presbyterian leader, in a historic sermon preached 
Dec. 6, 1960, at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco.  Blake had 
been invited to the cathedral pulpit by the late Bishop James K. Pike, then 
head of the Diocese of California. 
 
    Blake's sermon, which became front-page news, envisioned a new church 
that would simultaneously be "truly catholic and truly reformed."  Two 
years later, at the consultation's first Plenary, participants agreed to 
add a third description, "truly evangelical," to Blake's formula. 
 
    The three words catholic, reformed and evangelical describe attributes 
regarded as central by particular theological traditions.  In the context 
of the consultation, Lancaster explained, the words have these meanings: 
 
    *  Catholic: an emphasis on sacraments and the threefold ministry 
(bishop, priest and deacon) 
    *  Reformed: an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, the centrality of 
Scripture, and representative government 
    *  Evangelical: an emphasis on mission and witness 
 
    Since the start of the movement spearheaded by Pike and Blake (who died 
in 1969 and 1985 respectively), a full generation of church leaders has led 
COCU's deliberations, and  younger generations of leaders have moved into 
key positions. 
 
    Lancaster noted that consultation leaders are fond of quoting a saying 
of a noted ecumenist, the late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin. To those who asked 
why it took 40 years to form the Church of South India, Newbigin would 
respond: "Because we were in such a hurry." 
 
    At COCU's organizational genesis in 1962, four churches were 
represented.  Other bodies have since joined, two separate mergers 
involving member churches have taken place.  The consultation, whose 
offices are in Princeton, N.J.,  now has nine member denominations: African 
Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, 
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Episcopal Church, International Council of Community Churches, 
PC(USA), UCC and the United Methodist Church. 
 
    Each denomination will have 10 official delegates at the St. Louis 
Plenary.  A number of ecumenical observers will attend from church bodies 
that are not COCU members.  Plenary sessions will be open to the press and 
public. 
 
(Jean Caffey Lyles, an award-winning free-lance journalist, is press 
officer for COCU.) 

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