October 14, 2009

Global theologians' meeting looks at issues that divide churches

A global gathering in Crete of theologians from most major Christian traditions has concluded with a call for churches to show greater tolerance of each other on contentious issues which divide them.

"If we are really to be open to each other we need to be willing to experience others on their own terms and not only on ours," said British theologian the Rev. Susan Durber in a sermon at the end of the October 7-13 meeting of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches.

"We need to be both strong and vulnerable enough to venture into the strange space of the church of another tradition," said Ms Durber, principal of Westminster College, Cambridge and a minister of the United Reformed Church in Britain.

The WCC's Faith and Order Commission deals with theological questions that divide churches. As well as examining doctrinal issues that separate Christian traditions, the meeting also tackled moral and ethical issues that have proved contentious within churches.

The WCC said the goal of the meeting was not to discuss the moral or ethical issues but rather the way in which churches reach decisions about such matters. Case studies included the issue of homosexuality, which has divided the worldwide Anglican Communion over the consecration of gay bishops and the institution of same-sex blessings.

"It's difficult to know exactly why in the last 10 or 20 years, in various regions of the world, this issue has become such a danger to the unity of the church," said Christian Polke. A professor of theology in Hamburg, Prof. Polke took part in a working group in Crete about homosexuality.

Professor Dr Stefanie Schardien, from the University of Hildesheim, who was in a working group on issues related to stem cell research, said there will probably never be a complete solution for ethical disagreements. "But I think it may be a step forward if we start talking about these issues and consider, 'What are our own specific approaches?" the German Protestant news agency epd reported Dr Schardien as saying.

Participants at the meeting at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Kolympari, Greece, also considered progress on a study on "The Nature and Mission of the Church".

This attempts to attempts to achieve ecumenical agreement on world Christianity's understanding of "ecclesiology", or the doctrine of the church, which is a major point of contention between Christian traditions.

Metropolitan Geevarghese Mar Coorilos of India, a bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, noted the Faith and Order text's "philosophical imagination", as being typical of "classical models of dialogue".

Still, he said, the text failed to, "bring out the socio-political implications of theological insights … especially for the poor and the marginalised sections of our society, who form the majority of the church in the global south, particularly in India".

The seven-day meeting was opened by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomeos I, a spiritual leader from Eastern Orthodox Christianity who is based in Istanbul. He described the preservation of the environment and the promotion of interreligious dialogue as common tasks for churches seeking unity.

Christian unity itself, "demands a profound sense of humility", said Patriarch Bartholomeos. "It also implies that imposing our ways on others — whether 'conservative' or 'liberal' — is arrogant and hypocritical. Instead, genuine humility demands from all of us a sense of openness to the past and the future."

The roots of the Faith and Order Commission go back to 1927, when the first World Conference on Faith and Order took place in Lausanne, Switzerland. Alongside other church unity efforts, it led to the foundation of the Geneva-based WCC in 1948.

Stephen Brown, ENI