World Council of Churches - Update
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org For immediate release - 09/11/2007 11:29:17 AM
DEATH AND REBIRTH ARE NEEDED IF THE VISIBLE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IS TO BE ACHIEVED, PENTECOSTAL SCHOLAR SAYS
Pentecostal theologian and scholar Cheryl Bridges-Johns proposed a radical reinvention of the ecumenical movement in a keynote address delivered on the third day of the Global Christian Forum which takes place 6-9 November in Limuru, near Nairobi, Kenya.
Bridges-Johns, a professor at the Theological Seminary of the Church of God in Cleveland (Tennessee), US, sparked a vivid discussion with her lecture, which elaborated on a statement from the 1961 New Delhi assembly of the World Council of Churches: "the achievement of unity will involve nothing less than a death and rebirth of many forms of church life as we have known them".
For Bridges-Johns, what is dying is "the old 'mainstream' ecumenical paradigm," as "the structures built to create and sustain the visible unity of the church are no longer viable". As a result, "a new form of ecumenism is needed that is able to embrace the challenges of world-wide Christianity". The Global Christian Forum "represents such an effort". It is one instance of "a number of new ecumenical tables" that have arisen over the last decade or so.
The Global Christian Forum is for many the most inclusive Christian meeting ever gathered to advance Christian unity and explore common challenges. It has brought together over four days some 240 high level representatives from Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Evangelical, Pentecostal and other traditions as well as interchurch organizations from some 70 countries.
But, Bridges-Johns affirmed, "even among those who seek a new form of ecumenism and applaud the death of the old, there is a lack of awareness of the extent of the death and re-birth necessary for the achievement of the visible unity of the world-wide church".
According to the speaker, "any new form of ecumenism must take into account the new faces, the different worldviews and new voices of non-Western Christianity". But the so-called "new ecumenism" fails to understand the reality of the "indigenous, multi-faceted forms of Christianity" outside the Western context. "Western conservatives look to the South for support, but fail to understand the worldview of Southern Christianity."
Those wishing to "construct a new ecumenical table" will therefore need to undergo a process of conversion. "All of us, those from the North and those from the South, those from the East and those from the West [need] to die to old assumptions regarding each other."
For Western Christianity, conversion means, among other things, examining its sense that it represents "the pinnacle of evolutionary development," and that it must "die to its elevation of certain forms of scientific reason as more developed than other ways of knowing".
For churches from the South and East, "conversion would mean not being so quick to label Western Christianity as 'apostate' or 'post-Christian'," as well as to "avoid the temptation of judgment".
"We should not dismiss too quickly and easily the ecumenical movement and the instruments it has created," said Bishop Brian Farrell, from the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, speaking at a panel later in the day.
Affirming the value and role of the Global Christian Forum, Farrell recalled that the Forum owes its existence to those instruments. "Even if it is 100 years old, the ecumenical movement is still in its beginnings. The cause of Christian unity takes patience and a continued effort."
"Churches in the South should be allowed to set their own agenda," said the Rev. Israel Batista, general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches, in a comment to the plenary following the afternoon panel. "This Forum is still too Western-oriented; the churches in the South also have the capacity to discern what the Spirit is doing among them," Batista affirmed.
Additional information on the Global Christian Forum meeting is available at: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4775
News release:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/all-news-english/display-s ingle-english-news/article/1637/most-diverse-christian-ga.html
Feature article:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/all-news-english/display-s ingle-english-news/article/1637/ecumenism-or-how-to-rid.html
Global Christian Forum website [in English, French and Spanish]: http://www.globalchristianforum.net ( http://www.globalchristianforum.net/ )
This material may be reprinted freely.
Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
You receive this message as a subscriber to the WCC information service for media. To unsubscribe or change your settings, click here ( http://onli neservices.wcc-coe.org/pressnames.nsf/UpdateRequest?OpenForm ).
WCC ID: nJoBWU5exi1qWrutF9UPe3zxFO1kvkS1uXQ4WDHV1NjMpf3OQUc2W1yD9KlKiEs