An address to the Hull and District Theological Society on the occasion of its Golden Jubilee, 8 May 2007
by Dame Mary Tanner, President of the World Council of Churches and sometime Hon. Secretary of the Society
It is a great honour to have been invited to speak at this Golden Jubilee Dinner of the Hull and District Theological Society. And what a splendid programme you have had for this anniversary year. How I should like to have heard Father Storey on ‘The Church: Hierarchy or Democracy?’ and Charlotte Methuen on ‘The Case for Women Bishops’ and Alistair Key on ‘Re-assessing Black Theology’.
I don’t quite go back the whole 50 years to the founding of the Society, but very nearly. The train journey along the Humber today brought back memories of my first visit to Hull, that first train journey to what seemed to me at 21 the end of the world– ‘where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet’. That was in the spring of 1960 and later that year, as a very new assistant lecturer in OT and Hebrew, I attended my first meeting of the Society. For the next seven years this Society was a regular part of my life. The Society not only linked town and gown but it brought to Hull some well known scholars from outside – Barnabas Lindars, Dennis Nineham, John Bowden among them. The Society was important for me for another reason that I could not have identified at the time. It was in the Society that I met ministers and lay people from other Christian traditions than my own. Father Storey, Decima Dewey, Christopher Williams, Roman Catholics; the URC Minister from Cottingham whose name escapes me; Gerald Burt from the Methodist Church; the German Pastor and the ministers from the Nordic Sea-mens’ Church. The ecumenical mix was richer: Patrick with Natasha Thompson brought the Russian Orthodox perspective, Eva Pinthus the Society of Friends and, not least of all, Anthony Hanson, recently back from Bangalore, carrying with characteristic passion, the vision of the United Church of South India. It was perhaps because of these relationships that when, in 1982, I was faced with the choice of leaving teaching Old Testament in Cambridge to move into the ecumenical and theological ministry of the Church of England, I felt a little prepared by encounters in Hull days. I am enormously grateful for my 7 years teaching at the University in those heady days of university expansion, and for the way this Society often opened up new horizons for me. But enough of reminiscing. I thought that I would try to sum up some of the major ecumenical developments in the first 50 years of the Society’s life and then suggest some of the ecumenical challenges before us as you move into the next fifty years of the Society’s life.
Much has happened in the ecumenical movement in the fifty years represented by the life of this Society. I doubt whether any of us in the early nineteen sixties could have predicted the considerable advances that were to take place.
1.Churches have come out of their isolations locally, regionally and at world level. They have got to know one another and come to recognise and to open themselves to the gifts others bring to the ecumenical enterprise. There has been an exchange of gifts. The group that met together in the founding missionary conference in Edinburgh 1910, the major Protestant churches, Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and some Orthodox churches, has increased in number and now embraces nearly 350 member churches who meet in the fellowship of the World Council of Churches. And that fellowship of churches has changed beyond all recognition from a male, western, church hierarchs gathering to an inclusive community of ecclesial traditions, men and women, lay and ordained, from north and south. But perhaps the greatest change since the founding of this Society has been the advent of the Roman Catholic Church into the ecumenical scene after Vatican II. No other church since then has devoted more energy or more resources to the ecumenical movement than the Roman Catholic Church though sadly, for me, although a member of the Faith and Order Commission, the theological arm of the WCC, the Roman Catholic Church remains outside the fellowship of churches that is the World Council of Churches. It nevertheless co-operates with many of the activities of the Council. I believe that the World Council of Churchesd would be greatly strengthened if a sensible way could be found for the Roman Catholic Church to become a full member of the fellowship of churches.
But which of us back in 1960 would have predicted that the Bishop of Rome would invite the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the leaders of the mainline Protestant churches to Rome at the beginning of a new millennium to open with him the Holy Door of the Basilica and to pray for unity. Or who would have predicted that the Pope would invite the Christian churches and the leaders of other faith communities to Assisi to pray with him for justice and peace. None of us could have imagined back in 1960 that a Pope would invite the other churches to help him re-think his ministry of universal primacy in the service of the unity of all the churches as Pope John Paul did in his remarkable Encyclical – Ut Unum Sint.
It isn’t only church leaders or ecumenical jet setters that have come out of their isolations and got to know one another but thousands of Christians all over the world in local communities. In some places in this country Christians from different denominations share together in formal Local Ecumenical Partnerships to such a degree that some of them think of their identity as simply – Christian in this place. They have left denominational belonging behind and experience denominational belonging as confusing, contrary to the Gospel message, and overburdening their local lives.
2.Secondly, in the last fifty years Christians have learnt to act together both at the international level and locally in causes of justice and peace and the care of creation. These Christian movements have made a difference to the Church and to the world. Two of the most obvious examples of global witness that have had enormous impact are the Programme to Overcome Racism which, to our shame, met with considerable opposition in this country but which had such decisive effect on the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela came to the 1997 Assembly of the WCC to thank the ecumenical community for its witness and support throughout the struggle. Then there was the world wide ecumenical programme on the community of women and men in the nineteen 70’s which released the voice of women, uncovering ‘sexism’ deeply woven into the fabric of life of society and the life of the churches. Hundreds of women and men in this country took part in that global reflection and then action for renewal that flowed from the reflection. The language of liturgy, the ministry, the structures of all the churches in this country were effected, renewed and changed in the process. To these could be added the global ecumenical programmes on the cancellation of third world debt or the programme on the integrity of creation long before it was fashionable to talk of global warming.
Action together at a world level has been mirrored in the work of national and regional councils and more recently given fresh meaning in Councils becoming not just groups of individual ecumenical enthusiasts over against their churches, but ‘churches together’, churches acting together whether in Hull or Cottingham or York with their own programmes providing joint ministries to hospitals, schools, prisons, industry, joint projects to aid the homeless, running old peoples’ clubs, youth projects, working together for Christian Aid.
3.Thirdly, one of the most significant advances during the lifetime of this Society and of particular concern to you has been the vast network of theological conversations seeking to explore and overcome the issues that lay at the heart of church divides – issues of faith, order and moral life. These conversations have made impressive advances reaching convergence and consensus on some of the most divisive and seemingly intractable issues. I wonder if the Reformation scholar Professor James Atkinson of this university would have believed it possible that Roman Catholics and Lutherans would reach agreement on the very issue that lay at the heart of the Reformation divide – the doctrine of justification by faith through grace? The Joint Declaration, signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church in October 1999 in Augsburg, spectacularly opened the way for the condemnations of the Reformation and Counter Reformation to be left behind and reconciliation celebrated in the very place where the Reformation began. Who would have thought it possible for Anglicans and Roman Catholics to reach substantial agreement on the understanding of the presence of Christ in the eucharist and on the eucharist as sacrifice, or for Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox churches to reach agreement on the resolution of the christological controversies of fifteen centuries; or that Christians from so many ecclesial traditions would reach such a high degree of agreement on the sacraments and ministry as is recorded in the most important ecumenical document of the ecumenical century, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, from the multilateral conversation of the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC? Since Vatican II, spurred on by the Roman Catholic Church’s insistence that agreement in faith is essential for the visible unity of the Church, everyone has been talking to everyone else in a complex network of bilateral theological dialogues. Look along library shelves and you will find volumes of agreed statements from these conversations. Some of the best theology of the century has been produced in patient ecumenical conversation. The most recent text, hot off the press, is the one from the Anglican-Orthodox conversation – 12 years in the making, The Church of the Triune God.
4. Fourthly, the theological conversations and joint action have led to the establishment of some new relationships of communion, formally recognised and celebrated. The ecclesial map has changed, and is changing, more than any of us could have imagined when this Society began. Back in the sixties many in this Society were disappointed by the failure of the Anglican-Methodist scheme for unity. Some of you may remember that one of the strongest opponents was the Professor of Philosophy of this University -Professor Jessop. It seemed that the vision of more united churches like South India that Anthony Hanson spoke to us of had faded. And yet, in spite of the failure of the Anglican –Methodist scheme, the last 20 years has seen new partnerships of full communion or steps on the way to visible unity celebrated : the Leuenberg Agreement of pulpit and altar fellowship between Lutherans and Reformed in Europe; the Porvoo Communion between the Anglican Churches of Britain and Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches; the formal committed relationships on the way to visible unity between Anglicans in Britain and Ireland and Lutherans and Reformed in Germany and France, in the Meissen and Reuilly agreements. There are moves afoot in other parts of the world for relationships of full or closer communion – in Australia, in Southern Africa, in Zaire, and more on the drawing board. In this country too we have made advances not only with Christians across the water. The Church of England has a formal committed relation with the Moravian Church and most recently has entered a Covenant with the Methodist Churches of Great Britain, formally signed and celebrated in the presence of her majesty the Queen. All of these agreements are built on deepening relationships in life and mission and on the solid foundation of the consensus and convergences of the theological dialogues and entail commitments to live together into the future sharing in mission and service on the way to full visible unity. A complicated web of relations has come into being. The ecclesial landscape has changed and is changing whether we realise it or not. We live beyond the limits of the landscape that this Society knew when it was formed.
5.Fifthly, when it has been most inspirational, the ecumenical movement has challenged churches to understand that the unity of the Church is not about arid structural joinery based on compromise agreements on sacraments and ministry. The unity of the Church requires deep-down renewal of the human community of the Church, the breaking down of those human divisions that insidiously affect the life of every church body – divisions between men and women, people of colour, rich and poor, those with different abilities, or those of different sexual orientation. There will be no authentic unity as long as human divisions penetrate the life of the Church, insidiously affecting the words we use to proclaim the faith, the way we celebrate the sacraments, the persons we choose for ordained ministry, and the way we exercise power and authority. All the churches could be united tomorrow, but unless that were to go hand in hand with a deep-down renewal of the life in the Christian community, it would not be authentic unity. Christians have to be renewed together into unity. This has been one of the most challenging insights of the rainbow ecumenical community which gathers under the auspices of the WCC in the last century.
• A complex ecumenical scene
And yet for all the achievements of the last 50 years the ecumenical scene today is fragile and confused. The very success of the movement with all its activities and conversations and new relationships is, for some, just too complicated. It saps energy diverting attention from what they see as the Church’s central calling to witness to the Gospel. The success of the movement has led some to fear the loss of their own denominational identity, resulting in a desperate clinging on to things that have become badges of identity, with a resurgence of narrow denominationalism. There is a fear of anything which suggests moving ‘beyond Anglicanism’ to quote the title of a book by Anthony Hanson, ‘beyond Lutheranism’, ‘beyond Methodism’, to a more inclusive, broader and more diverse ecclesial place. Moreover, internal divisions in some churches threaten established ecumenical relations. And, sadly, there seems little interest in things ecumenical among the younger generation.
Tensions between the Christian East and West contribute to the fragility of the ecumenical scene. The hope of the 1970’s of Christianity ‘breathing again with two lungs’ seems more remote. Orthodox churches have threatened to withdraw from the fellowship of the World Council of Churches; Bulgaria and Georgia have withdrawn and there have been times when it seemed that the great Russian Church has considered following. It would be a tragedy if the Orthodox contribution to the ecumenical movement were to be diminished. The fellowship of churches has been immeasurably enriched by the theology and deep spirituality of the Orthodox churches.
The Orthodox feel compromised in a fellowship of churches that appears to them to endorse developments with which they cannot agree and which provides no space for their dissenting views. Some Orthodox will no longer attend prayer services at ecumenical gatherings. However, there has recently been a hopeful development. A Special Commission of half Orthodox and half other member churches of the WCC has met to listen to and respond to Orthodox concerns. This has led to the World Council adopting a consensus method of discernment and decision making in which the views of all are listened to and taken note of. This has replaced a parliamentary style of voting. There has also been the adoption of new guidelines for praying together which lay greater emphasis on each ecclesial tradition offering to others the riches of its own spirituality. Both these developments are hopeful signs of a new sensitivity and maturity in the ecumenical fellowship.
The fragility of relations between East and West has been seen in the state of relations between Rome and Constantinople. Since the end of the Cold War, the Russian Church has accused the Roman Catholic Church of ‘sheep stealing’, proselytism, of taking over church buildings that properly belong to them, and setting up rival bishoprics in Russia, thus destabilising the scene in a country where the indigenous religion is Orthodoxy. The new situation has slowed down the progress of the international theological conversation that was so full of promise. But thankfully that conversation has more recently resumed.
In spite of the fact that we have got to know one another in a century of ecumenical endeavour, churches seem to take actions, or make pronouncements, with little thought for how that affects close partners. Our churches hardly seem to understand that because of the new ecumenical context there can be today no such thing as a purely internal document, or a unilateral action. Anglican moves to ordain women, just at the moment when it seemed agreement might be reached on the reconciliation of ministries, was felt as a rejection by some Roman Catholics, introducing what the Pope described as ‘a grave new obstacle’ in the relationship. The more recent consecration of a gay man as bishop in the USA led the Roman Catholic Church to call off for a time the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Bishops’ Commission for Unity and Mission. Though that episcopal Commission has recently finished its work and produced an important report to all Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops urging them to encourage closer co-operation and to live out the convergences in faith in a converging life and mission.
On the other hand, the publication of statements by the Sacred Congregation for the Faith, like Dominus Iesus,2000 and Ad Tuedam Fidem with language of ‘proper churches’ and its restrictive use of ‘sister churches’ sent a chill wind through the ecumenical movement. It has touched a raw nerve and by raising the sharp question of who is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church seems to ‘un-church’ others.
The ecumenical scene is further complicated by changes taking place within world Christianity, from a movement with its centre in Europe and Northern America to the fastest growing Christian communities now being in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Now, only a quarter of the Christian population lives in Europe, and two-fifths are not white. The ecumenical conversation is no longer church tradition speaking to church tradition, but also culture speaking to culture. As the gospel takes root in the language, thought forms and images of different cultures, the question of how much diversity belongs to unity is strongly and rightly posed – what is legitimate diversity? How is the gospel to be expressed in the richness of different cultures so that the nerve centre of common faith is recognisable within those diverse expressions?
More recently, non-doctrinal factors are creating new walls of separation. Issues in the area of human sexuality are the cause of tension. Behind the new and divisive issues, whether of faith, order, or moral life, a major fault-line is apparent in the different approaches to the use of Scripture. Some Christians seem more divided than ever about what authority the Bible has, what its relation is to the Tradition of the Church, and what place contemporary experience should play in theological and ecumenical method. Where we need common certitudes, either a fundamentalist view of Scripture, or a vague liberalism, obstructs the search for agreement in faith.
The ecumenical scene is further confused by the fact that the fastest growing groups of Christians are those in the New Churches and Independent Christian Groups. These groups have much to teach about commitment to biblical faith and sacrificial giving but they rarely have any interest in the agenda of classical ecumenism with its concern for visible unity.
These are just some of the factors that contribute to a confused and fragile ecumenical scene. And there is one other factor which, almost more than any of these it seems to me, contributes to the confusion, that is the lack of agreement today about the goal of the ecumenical movement itself. In the early years of this Society I suspect most of us if we had an interest in the ecumenical movement would have agreed that the goal was nothing less than ‘organic union’. Today there are fewer and fewer who hold to this.
The ecumenical scene, though not without some very recent signs of growing maturity, is, nevertheless fragile and confused. There is a weariness with it all and a willingness to settle for co-operation across the walls of our separation. What then are the challenges for us in the years ahead and how might some of these provide subjects for some of the meetings of this Society? Let me quickly highlight 5.
• Challenges for the future
It seems to me that what is needed most is a testing out of whether churches really do any longer believe that their vocation is to be one and if so whether there is any agreed understanding now of what visible unity might entail. Do we any longer believe in unity expressed in a common faith, a single baptism, where we gather around a single table in Eucharistic fellowship, where our ministries are not just recognised but reconciled and where structures, local and universal, enable us to discern together, decide and teach together strengthening us to go out in mission together and to work together for justice and peace and care together for the goodness of creation. We don’t need another slogan, ‘organic union’ or ‘reconciled diversity’. We need to be able to describe to one another a portrait of life in unity that we believe God calls us to live out in and for the world. We need to be able to describe a unity which conveys a dynamic not static unity, a unity in rich diversity beyond anything we have yet begun to imagine, a dialogical unity in which we can stay together struggling with new perplexing issues not giving up on one another as we seek to discover the mind of Christ for the church today on a whole range of issues. We need to be able to convey that the personal and relational is always prior to the structural and institutional but the structural and institutional is not unnecessary but is there to serve and sustain the personal and relational. We perhaps need a poet theologian to portray a convincing and inspirational picture of God’s gift of unity – the gift to which god calls us.
The WCC last year invited the churches to join in a conversation around a short statement ‘Called to Be the one Church’ which will test out whether there is any common understanding of visible unity and challenging the churches, if there is, to commit themselves to it. The exploration of unity is supported by one of the latest theological reports from the Faith and Order Commission, perhaps the most important statement after BEM – The Nature and Mission of the Church. This ecclesiological document which harvests much work on ecclesiology over the last 30 years could provide this Society with an interesting and relevant subject for a future meeting.
A second challenge is to continue together the theological conversation, to face the seemingly intractable issues that prevent unity. The success of the ecumenical conversation has shown how much we have in common. It has also revealed starkly those neuralgic issues that remain – the relation of episcopal ministry in succession to the apostolicity of the Church; the ministry of universal primacy; the ordination of women; and now we have to face those divisive issues in the ethical agenda, around the beginning and ending of life and issues in human sexuality. The Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches are right to insist that we do need to know that we are united in the truth of the Gospel and in our understanding of those gifts of grace that nurture and sustain us in communion . The theological conversations have to go on. But theology is not enough. We also need to go on discovering ways to embed our theological agreements in new forms of shared life, shared mission and ministry. And we need to be imaginative in taking steps together on the basis of agreements reached and entering into new stages of shared life and mission. So far it has been the Anglican, Lutheran and Protestant churches, not the Orthodox or Roman Catholic churches that have entered new relationships. One of the promising things that has happened this year is that an international group of Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops has put proposals before their two world Communions for Anglicans and Roman Catholics everywhere to live closer lives based on the theological convergences and consensus of the ARCIC agreed statements. The bishops challenge us to enter a new stage of phased rapprochement, on the way to visible unity. What will be the response of our two Communions? A positive response could have an effect not only on Anglicans and Roman Catholics but on the wider ecumenical movement.
Alongside the theological conversation we need to go on together working for justice and peace at all levels of the Church’s life. We have learnt that it is not only ‘better together’ but also more effective and more credible. Desmond Tutu said to the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order:
We have to get on together with the business of redeeming the world, in the sense of making it a more human environment with room for love, for compassion, for joy, for laughter, for peace and prosperity, sharing and caring. From our experience in South Africa in fighting against apartheid there can be no question at all that a united Church is a far more effective agent for justice and peace against oppression and injustice.
The one movement that it seems to me is particularly relevant today is the Decade to Overcome Violence. It’s a movement whose time has surely come. We are half- way through the Decade and this year, 2007, concentration is on violence in Europe- not just violence in general, how can we face violence in general – but in very specific expressions of violence: trafficking of thousands of people, women and children terribly exploited; violence in relation to youth as the prime users of the violence industry; migration; military spending, service, and development that jeopardizes just peace; domestic and interpersonal violence; violence towards the earth, and yes, and that will perhaps be too hot to handle violence in the church. It’s a huge programme searching to express a theology of just peace, moving churches from just war theory to just peace and looking towards a Convocation on peace in 2011 which could result in the issuing of an Ecumenical Declaration on just peace. I wish churches in this country would pick up this challenge with the determination that Christians in Germany are doing.
These challenges I have sketched in very broad brush strokes must sound like more of the same, business as before. I make no apology for continuity is for me vital. But there are two other challenges which could make the ecumenical movement in the next 50 years look very different. I already mentioned that the fastest growing Christians bodies are not the mainline churches of the twentieth century ecumenical movement but the Pentecostals, the Charismatics and the Evangelicals who have little interest in the visible unity of the Church but whose interest is evangelism. Does their very existence and vibrancy call for a new ecumenical paradigm and a reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement and different ecumenical structures, with a shift away from visible unity at the centre of the ecumenical endeavour? There are those who believe that a more inclusive ecumenism is the way ahead. Already plans are in place for a meeting of a Global Forum drawing the WCC member churches and these Pentecostal, charismatic and Evangelical groups together. Where this will lead, or should lead, remains for me an open and complex question. I do believe that anything that brings Christians together and strengthens Christian witness in the world must be a good thing but this could result in a radically different ecumenical movement no longer dedicated to the visible unity of the Church.
And the last challenge that will prove perhaps the most taxing for the years ahead that Christians need to face together is the challenge of our relations with those of other faith communities. Those of you who remember the mid seventies will recall some exciting work both in relation to inter- faith relations as well as the theology of interfaith dialogue which was done in the World Council of Churches. Times are very different now. There are new fundamentalisms and new tensions emerging between faith communities. In this country we know how fragile relations are and how easily things can go wrong. The Holy Father’s lecture in Regensburg last year and the reactions it sparked off showed just how sensitive the area is. There could hardly be a more pressing challenge for us than developing our work together on inter-faith relations, and articulating together a convincing theological basis for engaging in interfaith relations. The WCC is a good context for such reflection. It provides a safe space for us to share insights from different cultural contexts, from places where Christians are in the majority and others where they are in the minority. The WCC does have a unique position for enabling us all to see our relations with those of other faiths in a more than local or even regional context. The Council has, with support from the Vatican, begun a project on ‘Inter-religious Dialogue and co-operation’, – involving both theological reflection and action. Theological reflection will explore what is the basis on which we are to enter encounters with those of other faiths. That work was begun in an inspirational address by Archbishop Rowan on ‘Christian identity in a pluralist world.’ Side by side with theological reflection will be the exploration of what common action we can take together with those of other faiths for justice and peace and the care of creation? Hardly any of our world Communions has the resources needed for inter-faith work – apart, perhaps, from the Vatican. We all need the resources of the Council and the Vatican to help us with the interfaith agenda.
Well I have travelled a long way looking back on some ecumenical advances of the last 50 years, hinting at the fragility of the present and looking at some of the challenges for the future. The situation has changed in 50 years and is changing. There are some difficulties in the present situation but also some hopeful new signs. For me there is no other way than to continue on the ecumenical journey grateful for all the advances that have been made and facing up to new challenges, however hard, together. Christians are called to witness to reconciliation, to show that there is a better way of living and loving, an alternative way. Cardinal Kasper once said that we may one day rub our eyes and be surprised at the new thing God has done among us. But this is to move from the lectern to the pulpit.
Thank you again for inviting me to share in these celebrations. I wish the Society well in the years ahead and hope that perhaps the ecumenical agenda may provide some fascinating subjects for your meetings. And I should like to think that some of the students will take up some of today’s ecumenical challenges.
Mary Tanner Hull May 2007
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