Theology Today - Vol 20, No. 4 - January 1964 - ARTICLE

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The Emerging Ecumenical Complex
By Robert McAfee Brown

"The hopeful thing that is happening today is that whenever a denominationalist honestly surveys his own past history and that of other denominations, he discovers that the things that bind them all together are much more central and important than the things that keep them apart. . . . But the new fact, perhaps the great new fact of our era (which William Temple did not foresee in his), is the fact that henceforth Christian ecumenical concern will be inclusive of Roman Catholicism as well as Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy."

So over-quoted is William Temple's remark that "the ecumenical movement is the great new fact of our era," that one can no longer use it without a sense of self-consciousness for repeating the obvious. But perhaps before it is gently interred for the archivists to exhume at some future date, it can be pressed into service once more, since it does indeed describe the major movement in the life of the church during the past generation. In that space of time, a divisive group of "sects and insects" in competition with one another during almost four hundred years of division have become groups concerned to draw closer to, rather than farther away from, one another; to find as many ways of working together as possible; and to take steps toward organic reunion wherever possible. In 1903, such a development could never have been predicted; in 1943, it could be hoped for; in 1963 it is becoming a fact. The ecumenical movement is, indeed, the great new fact of our era.

There is no need in the present context to detail the events through which the hope has become a fact: the first groupings toward ecumenical coöperation at Edinburgh in 1910; the conferences on

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Faith and Order and Life and Work, Stockholm, Lausanne, Edinburgh, and Oxford; the missionary involvement at Madras; the long war years when the World Council of Churches was "in process of formation"; the birth of the W.C.C. at Amsterdam in 1948; the Evanston conference in 1954; the merger with the International Missionary Council at New Delhi in 1961. These are part of the record, and, in James Thurber's phrase, "you can look it up."

A look to the past is not called for, but rather a look at the present, so that with the help of the present, it will be possible to look at the future. Two emerging currents that are destined to put their stamp on future ecumenical activity will be examined, one more briefly, the other in greater detail.

The first of these is the fact that along with an increasing ecumenical consciousness has come an increasing denominational self consciousness. The rising tide of ecumenicity has not drowned the concern of various denominations to look to their respective heritages, but has in fact increased the concern of the various participants in ecumenical endeavor to discover more clearly the nature of their own roots and tradition. In short, the ecumenical movement has made it clear that no one can ignore history. Four hundred years of denominationalism are not going to be wiped out overnight, let alone in a single generation. All of us are what we are because of our history, and we cannot pretend that the four hundred years of division have not left their stamp upon us.

But there are differing estimates of the significance of these twin currents of ecumenical consciousness and denominational self-consciousness. Many people who applaud the former tend to deplore the latter. They interpret the concern of the Lutherans, to take only one example, to explore their Lutheran past and emphasize distinctively Lutheran contexts today, as a concern that is divisive rather than healing, that impedes progress rather than enhancing it. They fear that such denominational self-consciousness will raise new barriers across the road of possible reunion efforts, since any denomination that rediscovers the greatness of its own past is tempted to repeat the conviction of its founders that it, alone, had a true insight into the nature of the Christian faith, and that it, alone, was preserving the New Testament pattern of church life.

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Such are the advances of historical scholarship today that it is almost impossible for responsible scholars to make either claim; but even so, the argument runs, every enhancement of denominational tradition tends to foster and increase denominational pride.

Fuel is added to the fire of those who believe that resurgent denominationalism is a bad thing, by the experience of the so-called "younger churches." Among those who live on the frontiers of modern church life, it is clear that denominationalism is a luxury they cannot afford to embrace, and that there is something particularly sinful about the efforts of western Christians to impose on their eastern brethren patterns of church life that may once have had some historical justification, but certainly have such no longer. It can be said quite bluntly that while there may have been good historical reasons for the coming into-being of certain denominations, these reasons are almost entirely irrelevant today, and that the continued existence of such denominations is an anachronism on the present scene-which is a fairly gentle way of describing the situation.

But it is also argued by another group that denominational self-consciousness can represent a responsible contribution to ecumenical growth. Denominations do, in fact, exist, and if, at the present time, one wishes to be a Christian, he does not simply join The Church becomes a Presbyterian or a Baptist or an Episcopalian; these (along with about 250 others) are his options. If he wants to work for a reunited Christendom he must have some kind of base of operations within contemporary Christendom, namely, a denomination, and he must come to know what that denomination has stood for in the past.

The hopeful thing that is happening today is that whenever a denominationalist honestly surveys his own past history and that of other denominations, he discovers that the things that bind them all together are much more central and important than the things that keep them apart. It has become a kind of truism to say that when the admittedly important areas of ministry and sacrament are bracketed, there are no doctrinal areas in which the major Protestant groups are seriously or irreconcilably separated from one another.

Honest denominational self-consciousness, in other words, can demonstrate that our denominations are an historical phenomenon incidental to the full ordering of the Gospel, though they may at one time have been useful instruments for the furthering of that

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Gospel, and that as we grow in an understanding of our respective pasts we will grow toward rather than away from one another. It is becoming clearer and clearer that in fact we already share a unity, a unity in Christ, that is more basic and more fundamental than the divisiveness that still separates us. As Albert Outler has suggested, " the future imperative to unity derives from the present indicative of unity." So long as a given denomination is seeking not merely to perpetuate itself but to discover what in its own heritage can be its distinctive offering to "the coming great church," so long as it is willing to die to its present form in order that a new church may be born, then denominational self-consciousness need not remain a curse but can become a blessing.

Many will claim that the hope is too high, that denominationalism has become too deeply entrenched to be rooted out. There is, after all, the story, probably apocryphal, of the various denominational groups that met in Geneva to determine what each could contribute to the coming ecumenical generation, at the conclusion of which each denomination had decided that its true destiny was to serve as the "bridge church" through which the other, somewhat aberrant, churches could come to the fullness of the Gospel. But it would nevertheless seem clear that in terms of Protestantism, the road to ecumenical advance and eventual unity is through denominations rather than around them.

This matter of denominational self-consciousness is an intramural Protestant problem that will, in better or worse ways, come to gradual resolution. Whatever may come, practically, of "the Blake proposal," for example, it is already clear that the denominations involved in discussions concerning it cannot emerge from those discussions quite as self-satisfied as they entered them, and the seriousness with which the negotiations are proceeding suggests that considerably higher sights can be set. We can anticipate that some at least of the denominational barriers now existing will disappear as a result.

But there is another factor that characterizes the emerging ecumenical complex. It is relatively new, and in the long run much more significant. This is the increasing involvement of Roman Catholicism in ecumenical discussion and activity. Whereas one

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could have foreseen that ecumenism would challenge denominationalism, one could scarcely have foreseen the degree to which the rise of Protestant ecumenism would so quickly draw forth corresponding concerns from Roman Catholic Christendom. Until very recently, the Roman Catholic attitude toward Protestant ecumenical activity was one of cool and aloof disengagement. Indeed, as recently as 1928, Roman Catholics were discouraged by papal pronouncement from any relationship to Protestant ecumenical endeavor. The encyclical Mortalium Animos discredited the efforts of "pan-Protestantism" and seemed to close the door firmly against any Catholic-Protestant activity, let alone cordiality, on the ecumenical front. But the new fact, perhaps the great new fact of our era (which William Temple did not foresee in his), is the fact that henceforth Christian ecumenical concern will be inclusive of Roman Catholicism as well as Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

For the sentiments of Pius XII in 1928 are not the sentiments of John XXIII and Paul VI in 1963. The Catholic may rightly respond that in 1928 the nature of Protestant ecumenism was such that the Catholic Church had to approach it gingerly. But whatever the reasons, the fact is that there is a brand new situation a situation that changes so rapidly that almost any attempt to describe it is dated before it has appeared in print. We must, even with that risk, however, look briefly at the rise of ecumenical concern within recent Roman Catholicism and see what it means for the future.

Father George Tavard has written a history of Two Centuries of Ecumenism within Roman Catholicism, and it is true that Catholicism has never lost its sense of concern for "the other sheep," and has always been willing to reach out to non-Catholic Christians with the plea, "Submit and Return." But while never wavering in its belief that it is the one true church and that the one sheepfold must have one shepherd who must have one vicar, the Catholic Church has evidenced a new attitude in recent statements and actions. Non-Catholic are less frequently referred to as "schismatics and heretics" and more frequently as "separated brethren." The phrase goes back, in formal currency, at least as far as the early writings of Fr. Yves Congar, but it was given common currency only when John XXIII became Pope.

What is important to note is that this is not merely a matter of strategy and ecumenical tactics, wherein less offensive rather than

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more offensive phrases are desirable; the words have a theological basis as well, as Cardinal Bea has pointed out so emphatically in The Unity of Christians (Herder and Herder). For Catholic theology affirms (and this is nothing new) that everyone, by virtue of baptism, is in some sense incorporated within the Catholic Church. And since Roman Catholicism recognizes the validity of Protestant baptism, this means that in Catholic eyes, all baptized persons are part of the mystical body of Christ which is his church. Thus we Protestants are indeed brethren to Roman Catholics. That we are also separated brethren is an empirical fact none can gainsay. But the change in atmosphere, subtle but absolutely basic, is that in current Catholic thinking, the fundamental word is the noun rather than the adjective. If the basic fact about us were that we are separated, then perhaps that is all that we could ever be. But if the basic fact is that we are brethren who somehow have tragically become separated, then it is clear that separation from one another is not our final destiny. Our final destiny can only be the recovery of brotherhood, a brotherhood that exists even in the midst of separation, because it is based on a common confession of a common Father, in whose name, at baptism, we have been inextricably joined both to him and to one another.

It is almost impossible to calculate the difference this emphasis makes. It is much more important than ecclesiastical summit conferences between popes and archbishops of Canterbury or moderators of the Church of Scotland, valuable as such symbols of new cordiality are. It means, quite simply, that future attempts at rapprochement between Protestants and Catholics start from the point of view of something shared and held in common, rather than from the point of view of cleavages and divisions. Soon enough, to be sure, meetings, encounters, and "dialogues" between the two groups will come face to face with the reality of the remaining cleavages and divisions -and no sane theologian will overlook these or expect them somehow to be transcended in years or even decades. But if there exists between Protestants and Catholics an inextricable bond created by baptism, then it is possible with considerable realism, and not simply naivité, to expect that the Holy Spirit will find ways to assist men to overcome the barriers that keep them separated. "That they may be one" is a prayer no man of faith may ever cease to utter.

Such, then, is the new "atmosphere," providentially fostered and

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enhanced by the brief but Spirit-filled pontificate of Pope John XXIII. If ever God caused a man to appear at the "right time" in history, if ever God gave to the church the servant it most needed at a particular time, he did so in this good man. (Nobody who surveys the change in atmosphere in Roman Catholicism between the beginning and the end of Pope John's pontificate will have further difficulty understanding what Paul Tillich has meant by the doctrine of the kairos.) But it is important to realize that Pope John did not initiate these ecumenical concerns within Roman Catholicism. They were there, in this individual and that, simply waiting for the moment when they could be released to the church at large. What Pope John did was to give them his blessing and to indicate that henceforth ecumenically minded Catholic theologians would not be speaking merely for themselves but would be reflecting the concerns of the Holy Father himself. This has meant that men who were once felt to be "suspect" can now speak with a new authority and significance, and it means furthermore that the important voices in Catholicism today are the ecumenically oriented voices: Fathers Congar, de Lubac, Tavard, Weigel, Rahner, Baum, Küng, Bea, Willebrands, Leeming, and a host of others. The influence of such men will increase rather than decrease, and the ecumenical dialogue will be enriched thereby.

III

With this background, we can point to a number of further factors in recent Catholic history that have helped to bring this change about. Fundamental, and also symptomatic, has been the calling of Vatican Council II. For Catholic-Protestant ecumenism, three things in particular are important about the Council: (a) It is clearly an attempt at reformation within the life of Roman Catholicism, and not merely as a matter of internal house-keeping, but also as an ecumenical gesture. Hans K�ng's phrase, "through the council to reform toward reunion" describes the posture of many others in the church as well. (b) The presence of non-Catholic observers is an important ecumenical recognition by the Catholic Church. It must be remembered that at Amsterdam and Evanston the Vatican would not even permit Catholic observers to be present, despite formal invitation from the World Council. At New Delhi, five Catholic observers were in attendance at all the meetings, a formal

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recognition that Catholicism was now ready to take seriously the activities of the "separated brethren." That the Vatican should then reciprocate by issuing an invitation through the World Council for non-Catholic observers to be present at its own council, is a long step toward closer ecumenical recognition. (c) Perhaps the most important contribution of the Council will be a by-product. This is the creation of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, which will remain after the Council has adjourned. The Secretariat provides a structure through which Catholic ecumenical concern and activity can be expressed. Given the nature of the Catholic Church, the creation of the Secretariat is far more important than mere words, sentiments, or good will alone could possibly be. For it means that the church takes seriously its relationship to non-Catholic Christendom and is determined to do everything it can, in fidelity to its own principles, to foster better understanding and relationship.

A second factor on the Catholic scene has been the self-critical nature of contemporary Catholic scholarship. Recent studies of the Reformation, for example, have lost their sheerly polemical edge. The concern is no longer to make Luther as evil as possible, but to discover what were the genuinely religious motivations that led to the divisions of the sixteenth century. That the Reformers were concerned to preserve "the Catholic faith," which was jeopardized in the late medieval church, is coming more clearly to be acknowledged, and many Catholics are not far behind Hans Küng in his plea that the Catholic Church today recognize everything that was legitimate in the Reformers' protests, and seek to neutralize those protests, so that some of the enduring blocks of stumbling will be removed.

But the Catholic reappraisal of its own history has been equally significant. Studies of the Council of Trent, over the past two decades, make clear that Catholic textbook theology subsequent to that Council may have perpetuated a misunderstanding of the mind of that Council on the matter of Scripture and tradition. The familiar "two sources" theory of revelation as contained partly in Scripture and partly in tradition, is under severe attack at present, and it is highly significant that a schema to perpetuate this point of view was roundly defeated by the bishops last fall at Vatican II. The revised schema will certainly give greater place to the authority and even the centrality of Scripture, and interpret tradition not as an independent

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source of revelation, but as the means by which the meaning of Scripture is unfolded in the ongoing life of the church.

This suggests another factor that has been responsible for the new ecumenical atmosphere in Roman Catholicism. This is the impact of biblical studies on the life and theology of the church. It is no secret that biblical scholarship was at a low ebb in the decades immediately succeeding the (Catholic) Modernist controversy which came to a head in 1907. But since 1943, due to the influence of the encyclical Divino afflante spiritu, a new liberty has been accorded Catholic biblical scholars, with the result that Catholic theology is in process of being liberated from a long scholastic captivity. Impersonal categories are being replaced by biblical categories, and the whole of Catholic faith is being seen once again in terms of the God who revealed himself centrally in Israel's history and in Jesus Christ.

Where these and other impulses on the Catholic scene will lead, it is given to no man to discern, but the Protestant as he looks to the future can only rejoice that the spirit of ecumenism, the spirit of reform, and the spirit of biblical concern are the terms in which contemporary Catholicism must be described. For it is the Protestant conviction that whenever the church listens to Scripture, whenever it tries to guide its life by what it finds there, and whenever it is willing to reform whatever is found to be amiss when measured by the biblical standard-then when such things are happening, no human boundaries can be erected around what the Holy Spirit might be pleased to do with them.

What will all this mean, then, for the next decades of ecumenical concern? These decades will probably be times of tentative exploration rather than of overwhelming advance. There has been such a backlog of suspicion and hostility between Protestants and Catholics that one cannot expect the atmosphere to change overnight. But changing it is, and faster than anyone could have anticipated. For our generation, the task will be to live within this new climate and not be too impatient when immediate spectacular results are not forthcoming.

For when the new good will has been (in the best sense of the word) exploited, and the new possibility of dialogue realized, three things will happen. First, some astonishing areas of shared convic-

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tion will re-emerge. Part of this will simply be due to the fact that misunderstandings and stereotypes will have been dispelled. Catholics will discover that Protestants don't just believe "whatever they please." Protestants will discover that Catholics aren't forbidden to read the Bible, and that Catholics aren't sitting around waiting to rekindle the fires of the Inquisition. The two groups will find that at many points their theological emphases will complement one another rather than negate one another. (Hans Küng, for example, has already demonstrated to the satisfaction of many highly-placed experts that Karl Barth's doctrine of justification is almost identical with what the Council of Trent was really trying to say!)

But along with all this will emerge a second fact, that when all the shared convictions have been joyfully discovered and rediscovered, some awesome cleavages will remain across which no bridges of good will and understanding will seem sufficient. These will represent the ultimate irreducible differences-such things as the dogma of infallibility, the Mariological dogmas, and certain claims made from both sides about the nature of the church. Perhaps the contribution of the "dialogue" will be to clear away the misunderstandings so that we can begin to disagree about the right things. Even if this alone happened, it would, of course, represent gain. One has to say, indeed, that from a human vantage point there seems no "compromise" possible, no middle ground between these basic differences that will more and more clearly emerge.

And the most that can be asserted is a statement by faith and not by sight-that if it is indeed the will of Christ that his church should be one, then no merely "human vantage point" is a sufficient vantage point from which to survey the future. If with men it is impossible, the Christian has to remember that with God all things are possible, and that in this particular arena we are called upon to do all we can to overcome whatever obstacles we can overcome, and be content in our faith that God will do something with our efforts to the ultimate fulfillment of his purposes.

There is, however, a third thing that may happen, and if it happens it could decisively influence the first two. This is the possibility that in their ecumenical encounters with one another, Protestants and Catholics may have their own understandings of themselves changed. It is not the present writer's task to speculate on how the impact with Protestantism might change the self-understanding of

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Roman Catholicism, though it is fair to note the fact that the rise of the World Council of Churches certainly hastened the development of ecumenical concern within Roman Catholicism, just as Protestant biblical scholarship has been usefully employed by Catholic biblical scholars in ways that are now affecting the very structures of Catholic theology itself.

But it is worthwhile to speculate on the degree to which the introduction of Roman Catholicism into the ecumenical dialogue may have a far-reaching impact on how Protestants understand themselves. A number of possibilities can be suggested.

(1). The polemical nature of much Protestant thought will be undermined by such encounter. Much of what currently passes for Protestant theology is a point of view basically oriented to a denial of Roman Catholic theology, and a decadent Roman Catholic theology at that. The Protestant who in the past has found comfort in the degree to which he can disagree with "Rome," will discover that the course of history, along with the development of Catholic scholarship and theology, have simply pulled the rug out from under many of his confident, polemical assertions. If he thinks that salvation by grace, and the priesthood of all believers, and the authority of Scripture are "distinctively Protestant positions" which Roman Catholics deny, he had better either go into hiding or prepare for some sleepless nights ere he reassesses his whole theological life.

(2). The Protestant will find that he must begin to think about Protestant intramural ecumenism in wider terms than he has before. He may be a Methodist who has never really spoken to Baptists, and now he finds himself being asked to examine a concept of the church in concert with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. He will not, it is clear, have been prepared for this. Or he may be a Presbyterian who has finally gotten to the point of thinking about the episcopate vis-à-vis Anglicans (low church, at least), and now he finds himself thrust into a discussion in the context of Vatican Council II about the biblical basis for the collegiality of bishops. And he will not, it is equally clear, have been prepared for this either. There are some who resent what they might call the "premature" entrance of Roman Catholicism into the ecumenical complex. "We need another fifty years to get our own house in order," they say, "before we can even begin to talk with Roman Catholics." But a combina-

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tion of history, John XXIII, and the grace of God, have now permanently removed that possibility. No more intramural Protestant ecumenism may proceed as though Roman Catholicism "weren't there." It is there. And it will remain there.

(3). This does not mean, however, that the Protestant ecumenical task is to find graceful ways of becoming Roman Catholic. It means, as it has always meant, that the Protestant ecumenical task is to pray for the grace of God to become catholic, to exemplify within its own communions that fullness of catholicity which we believe no single church now fully possesses in uncorrupted measure. The distinction must be clear. It is not being suggested that the presence of Roman Catholicism in the ecumenical dialogue is designed to snuff out the distinctive Protestant witness. On the contrary, the presence of Roman Catholicism within the ecumenical dialogue should help us to rediscover what is the distinctive Protestant witness. We Protestants are called upon, in other words, not to imitate Roman Catholics, but to offer into the now-wider ecumenical dialogue whatever is particularly distinctive in our own heritage. As we do this, we may discover that some things we thought were important aren't so important after all, or are emphases that can just as well be conserved by Christendom without our continuing to witness to them individually. Every attempt to articulate the Protestant witness with fidelity can be used by the Spirit, for reform and renewal, as all of us try to achieve them, are movements of the Spirit that can only bring us closer together, rather than putting us farther apart.

(4). A final impact that the wider ecumenical dialogue can have on Protestants is the way it will force us to examine portions of the total Christian heritage to which we have given insufficient attention in the past. No one can read the Montreal report on "Tradition and Traditions" without realizing that our understanding of tradition has been enriched by ecumenical exchange with Roman Catholics. I would even venture the suggestion that the time is ripe for Protestant theologians to put aside some of their emotional and polemical instincts long enough to make a sober reassessment of the place that Mary could occupy within evangelical Christianity. I do not suggest that such reassessment is going to lead us to the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven, but

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I do suggest that we must remove our sixteenth century blinders and see, honestly, what the New Testament tells us about her.

Such comments may imply that the present article is wrongly titled: instead of being "The Emerging Ecumenical Complex," it should be "The Emerging Ecumenical Complexity." But twentieth century men have had to learn to live with complexity in a way that pre-atomic men did not. Perhaps twentieth-century churchmen must learn to live with complexity in a way that pre-ecumenical churchmen did not.

When, then, are the specific tasks ahead? The two main directions for the next phase of ecumenical encouter would seem to be these: (a) increasing intramural activity among Protestants to work, through existing denominations, for the reunion of divided Protestantism, recognizing that this is a possible and tangible task laid upon this generation by God; and (b) increasing outreach toward Roman Catholicism, in the midst of our intramural activity, recognizing that here the future is far from clear, that we walk by faith and not by sight, and yet realizing that this mandate, too, has been placed upon our generation by God, to the end that, in his own time and by the means that he shall choose, Christ may draw all men unto himself through one church in which he is acknowledged as Head and Lord.