wfn.org | COCU members to enter new relationship in 2002

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

January 25, 1999	Contact: Linda Bloom*(212) 870-3803*New York
10-21-71B{039}

ST. LOUIS (UMNS) - The nine member communions of the Consultation on Church
Union (COCU) voted unanimously Jan. 24 to enter into a new relationship that
would be publicly celebrated early in 2002.

The vote, which included United Methodists, came during the consultation's
18th plenary. It offered new direction to a process that started nearly 40
years ago but has bogged down over issues of ministry.

"I thought the meeting went beyond many of our expectations," said the Rev.
Bruce Robbins, a delegate and general secretary of the United Methodist
Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. The vote
celebrates "the way in which it seems God is pushing us in new forms of
communion," he added.

Besides the United Methodist Church, member communions are the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ), United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church
(USA), Episcopal Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) Church, African
Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ)
Church and the International Council of Community Churches.

Specifically, the 18th plenary session recommends the new relationship,
renamed Churches Uniting in Christ, be inaugurated during the Week of Prayer
for Christian Unity in January, 2001, through "public declaration and
liturgical celebration."

While it is hoped that all COCU members will be able to participate fully by
2002, churches unable to do so "would be invited to be partners in
continuing relationship" and encouraged to express as many of the "visible
marks" of the Churches Uniting in Christ as possible.

Those marks include:

*	Mutual recognition of each other as authentic expressions of the one
church of Jesus Christ; 
*	Mutual recognition of members in one baptism;
*	Mutual recognition of ordained ministry;
*	Mutual recognition affirming the apostolic faith of scripture and
tradition;
*	Provision for celebration of the Eucharist together with intentional
regularity;
*	Engagement together in Christ's mission on a regular and intentional
basis, especially a shared mission to combat racism;
*	Intentional commitment to promote unity with wholeness and oppose
marginalization and exclusion in church and society of any particular group.
*	An ongoing process of theological dialogue; 
*	Appropriate structures of accountability and appropriate means for
consultation and decision making.

The plenary document, however, acknowledged that these "visible marks" are
not the desired end result. "We seek a process by which the ordained
ministries of each participating church can become one ministry in Jesus
Christ in relation to all, a process of reconciliation that has already
begun and yet seeks its fulfillment," it said. "We acknowledge that up to
now we have not been able to find ways of completing this process that are
agreeable to all."

The report calls on the organization's executive committee to arrange a
meeting of representatives of the nine communions "to clarify the meaning of
reconciliation of ministry." It is hoped that the "full reconciliation of
ministries, as well as resolution of any remaining challenges" will occur by
2007.

COCU's long struggle over issues such as reconciliation was brought to mind
by Bishop Thomas Hoyt in the plenary's opening keynote address on Jan. 20.
The CME bishop from Shreveport, La., used the words of an old song to pose
the question before the delegates: "Is you is or is you ain't my baby?"

For his church and the other historic black churches that are members of the
consultation, the commitment has never been in question. Hoyt noted that
these churches helped lay the foundations of ecumenism. "We're in it for the
long haul," he declared.

But only seven of the nine members had fully embraced COCU's plan of action
and its theological basis before this month's meeting. While the national
Presbyterian Church (USA) had approved the covenanting proposal, local
presbyteries did not agree on the required constitutional amendments because
of ministry-related concerns. The Episcopal Church, at its 1994 general
convention, declared the church "not ready" to enter into covenant
communion.

To help work through these differences, a process of "discernment" was used
during the plenary, led by United Methodist Bishop Susan Hassinger, New
England area.

She described that process as an "intentional effort to be spiritually
focused" and to sense God's will related to a particular matter. The process
included individual prayerful reflection, dialogue in small, mixed-communion
groups and total group interaction.

Judy Kerr, a United Methodist delegate from Moorhead, Minn., said she
enjoyed "the excitement of talking and being with people of the other
denominations." Getting to know them, she added, "gave me a great deal of
hope for the future of our churches together."

As a member of the document drafting team, United Methodist Bishop Roy Sano
of the Los Angeles area said it was encouraging to him "to know they
(delegates) felt they were heard. We needed their help to articulate
precisely what they wanted to be said."

An integral part of the plenary was the focus on racism. In their new
relationship as Churches Uniting in Christ, the communions pledged to combat
"systematic white privilege" and approved a document entitled "A Call to
Christian Commitment and Action to Combat Racism." The members also
recommended they jointly sponsor an "analytical study of the workings and
effects of systemic white skin color privilege in America."

Sano, who is president of the Commission on Christian Unity, applauded the
linking of church unity and the need to end racism. He noted that the
constitution of the United Methodist Church also includes calls to unity and
inclusiveness.

In his sermon at the plenary's closing worship, United Methodist Bishop
William Boyd Grove of Charleston, W. Va., pointed out that John Wesley - an
Anglican priest and founder of the renewal movement which led to four of the
COCU communions - spoke about "catholic spirit" in one of his greatest
sermons.

"Can we become men and women of 'catholic spirit?' " he asked. "Can we pray
for those who disagree with us, 'bearing them,' as Wesley said, 'upon our
hearts?'

"Can we...`long for their welfare, not ceasing to commend them to God in
prayer?' Can we plead their cause, their cause, before others? If we can, we
can say as Wesley said, `If your heart is as my heart, give me your hand.'

"If we can live that way," Grove said, "the churches will find that visible
unity which will make gospel truth credible in our world."

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