wfn.org | Bishop Tells COCU Delegates to Embrace Union "Offspring"

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
22-January-1999 
99028 
 
    Bishop Tells COCU Delegates to Embrace Union "Offspring" 
 
    by Jean Caffey Lyles 
 
ST. LOUIS - Nine Christian denominations still struggling toward ecumenical 
union after 40 years of theological dialogue must recognize and embrace 
their offspring, a keynote speaker told delegates of the Consultation on 
Church Union (COCU) on Wednesday. 
 
    Bishop Thomas L. Hoyt, of Shreveport, La., and of the Christian 
Methodist Episcopal Church, used images of pregnancy and birth in his 
address to COCU's 18th Plenary here. 
 
    Hoyt said the central question confronting the assembly is summed up in 
the lyrics of an old song: "Is you is or is you ain't my baby?" 
 
    The five-day plenary meeting is a "defining moment" for COCU's unity 
movement as church delegates try to decide "Whose baby is this?" Hoyt said. 
 
    This is the first meeting of COCU's top legislative body in 10 years. A 
document unanimously approved by delegates to the 1988 New Orleans meeting 
was endorsed by eight of the nine churches. 
 
    This plenary is expected to produce a new proposal for a way forward. 
 
    The churches are the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist 
Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal, Christian Church (Disciples 
of Christ), Episcopal, International Council of Conmmunity Churches, 
Presbyterian (USA), United Church of Christ, and United Methodist. 
 
    COCU faces the challenge of moving from an ecumenical vision to "the 
goal of visible unity with all the theological and management details 
inherent in steering a movement with structures," Hoyt said. "Our `baby' is 
caught between movement and structure." 
 
    Hoyt reminded delegates that communism and the Soviet Union collapsed 
because  "people simply did not believe the vision any more." If the COCU 
churches lose their vision of unity, he said, their venture also will 
collapse. 
 
    COCU's parent churches have long been struggling to determine "what 
this baby should be, how the parent body should associate with the baby, 
whether the baby should be aborted or allowed to grow to full term," Hoyt 
said, and each denomination believes that its own understanding of what is 
good for the baby "is the one that should be followed." 
 
    While the new form of unity "is our baby [and] may resemble us" in 
various ways, it will live only because it is given life by God through the 
Holy Spirit," Hoyt said. 
 
    He mentioned the parent bodies' other ecumenical "babies," including 
bilateral and trilateral inter-church dialogues, with which some feel more 
comfortable because they involve churches belonging to close "kinship 
groups." He suggested that those talks can "enrich and enhance" the larger 
unity sought by COCU. 
 
    Addressing the topic of racism, a long-time concern within COCU, Hoyt 
observed, "Some would contend that the DNA which would cause COCU to give 
birth to a distorted baby is racism." 
 
    He said he hopes that the unity that finally comes "to full term" will 
have "constituents of all colors, economic strata, male and female, 
children and young adults, differently abled, and of various ages." He 
predicted that this "baby" will have "some features of each of us without 
being an exact replica of any of us." 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to wfn-news-request@wfn.org