Movement for Christian Unity Reaches ‘Ecumenical Crossroads’

Working for Christian unity has become thoroughly institutionalized, a part of the organizational machinery of virtually every major church body and of liaison units among them.

During a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, to begin Sunday, Christians around the world are asked to pray, as Jesus did, “that they may all be one . . . so that the world may believe.” But it is clear that the goal of Christian unity is still elusive and perhaps fading.

Some say the effort has sagged at a critical impasse.

“We are at an ecumenical crossroads,” says the Rev. William T. Rusch, ecumenical director for the Lutheran Church in America.

“Today churches are being asked if they want to continue just to speak about unity or if they want to do something about the actual possibility.”

The doctrinal dialogues continue among denominational theological teams--Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox--and the “convergence” agreements proliferate, but without steps implementing them.

What’s needed, says the veteran United Methodist ecumenist, the Rev. Albert C. Outler, is some sort of intercommunion “that could authenticate the oneness in Christ that so many feel is now so near and yet still so far.

“There is a tragic irony here. Having come so far, what seems still lacking is the will to venture those crucial steps that still lie beyond.”

His comments, and those of a wide variety of others, came in the January issue of Ecumenical Trends, published by Catholicism’s Graymoor Ecumenical Institute of Garrison, N.Y. It coordinates the week of prayers for unity with the doctrinal commission of the Protestant-Orthodox World Council of Churches.

“Reconciled to God in Christ” is the theme for the week, taken from Second Corinthians 5:17-20, to be used in thousands of church services, many of them on an ecumenical basis.

The observance is sponsored in this country by units of the National Council of Churches, including most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations, and by the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops’ conference.

A joint pastoral letter by officers of the two organizations says:

“Reconciliation is central to God’s redeeming plan. . . . (Yet) we remain seriously unreconciled under judgment of the word we proclaim. It is clear that God wills a visible, growing unity for the church.”

This doesn’t mean uniformity, they said, but “God does expect a true unity in our diversity.”

In the compendium of comments, Lutheran theologian Martin Marty of the University of Chicago says churches are bound to remain “rich in diversity” that won’t be blended into sameness.

But he adds that they must also “remain in the process of convergence, always moving toward each other and union in Christ,” demonstrating their “mutual acceptance, shared ministries and witness.”

He says Christianity’s “real divisions are within and across” denominational lines, not so much between them.

As a step toward reconciliation, he, like Outler, says the most urgent need is for shared Holy Communion, “licit and encouraged. Now.”

Most Protestant denominations allow intercommunion, but not Roman Catholicism in ordinary circumstances, although Catholic-Lutheran and Catholic-Anglican (Episcopal) dialogue teams have reached doctrinal accords about it.

The most far-reaching theological consensus, the 1982 “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” document by Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox scholars, is now under consideration by worldwide Christianity.

Responses from all its major branches still were accumulating at World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, with the start of 1987 set as the deadline for denominational reactions.

About 150 of them have been received, most of them lengthy, offering generally positive assessments, but also with criticisms of various points and proposed clarifications.

It likely would be months before the material is collated and analyzed.

The document opens a “new stage in the history of the ecumenical movement,” seeking “to bring to light and express today ‘the faith of the church through the ages,” says an international symposium of Eastern Orthodox theologians.

An American Protestant denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) responded that the document offers “an extraordinary opportunity for the church to move beyond the status quo.”

Some divided families of Christians now are coming together, such as recent mergers of Northern and Southern branches into the Presbyterian Church (USA) and three branches of Lutheranism uniting this spring into the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

But reconnecting separate families remains mostly unaccomplished, although various efforts for it continue, including the Consultation on Church Union involving 10 denominations, now acting on a 1984 “consensus” document.

Two denominations--the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church and the International Council of Community Church--have approved it, with the others expected to act on it over the next three years.

Meanwhile, many covenants of cooperation were developing between local congregations of different traditions--Lutheran, Episcopal and Catholic.