In surprising ways Ecumenical progress

...There have been enough instances of that sort of thing to make their fears not entirely unrealistic...

...The spirit of ecumenism exists permanently now, outside the boundaries of institutional ecumenism...

...Protestants were as sure of Rome's decadence and corruption as Rome was of their heretical divisiveness...

...Yet the real threat to fundamentalism is not relativism but another, more subtle and demanding, challenge presented by ecumenism at its best...

...One thing that makes the ecumenical movement and Vatican II transformative events in the history of Christianity is that both have required an evaluation of the foundations of Christianity...

...Fundamentalists are right to worry about all this...

...Although there are too many Orthodox who think they have nothing to learn from other Christian churches, there are others who know we have much to learn from (for example) Catholic moral theology, especially in such currently crucial areas as bioethics, and from Protestant and Catholic biblical scholarship...

...Many of those who support most of the results of the council are not happy with the state of the liturgy, their most common experience of the council's decisions...

...At Vatican II the rejection of a triumphalist approach toward non-Catholics, openness toward a dialogue with non-Christian religions, and the image of "the pilgrim church" marked a profound change not so much in Catholic doctrine as in Catholic attitude...

...Many Protestant churches have adopted the three-year lectionary approved by Vatican II for their own liturgical use, a borrowing-one that involves Scripture, no less-that would have been unthinkable before the council...

...Though there were occasional instances of reluctant learning across the barriers-Protestants loved Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God, for example, and the Orthodox reworked Jesuit Lorenzo Scupoli's Spiritual Combat, and renamed it Unseen Warfare-there was little self-doubt or self-examination at the confessional level...

...I think it was Augustine who said about the church, "There are sheep outside and wolves within...

...Although the Catholic Church is not part of the WCC, its observers play important roles on various WCC committees...

...The ecumenical movement, rooted early in the twentieth century, was given new strength after World War I. In 1920, the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople sent a letter to "all the churches of Christ, wherever they may be," asking for cooperation and suggesting a "League of Churches," parallel to the League of Nations...

...Whatever might come, the two (and they are at this point intertwined) represent a profound change...

...The ecumenical movement was a recognition of the fact that, although there are important differences between the churches, they share a common desire to follow Christ, and this is a strength...

...Could it be that we, as a group, have departed significantly from the right way...

...It is hard for some people to recognize that we hope to be possessed by the truth, which is very different from thinking that we possess it...

...theology...

...There are conservative Christians-Catholic, Evangelical, and Orthodox-who can't abide the National Council of Churches, but they are talking to one another in a way they would not have only a couple of generations ago...

...To call yourself Christian was seen as a kind of poaching by the other side before ecumenism caught on...

...Can my tradition be seen in the light of something higher, something that may call it into question...

...What is it that we share with other Christians, that calls us back to that common tradition...

...JOHN GARVEY IN SURPRISING WAYS How ecumenism has changed us There are lots of mixed feelings about the ecumenical movement, just as there are about the results of the Second Vatican Council, and they range all over the place...

...The implication is that one is not in possession of the truth, but this does not mean that truths are relative, or basic doctrines are up for grabs...

...Still, beyond the institutional forms ecumenism takes, there is a general consensus that ecumenism, seen broadly, is a good thing, when it does not lead to relativism or haziness about doctrinal differences, which (though divisive) remain important...

...Although the World Council of Churches (WCC) didn't hold its first assembly until 1948, a lot of preliminary work was done between the wars, and the Orthodox Church was actively involved from the start...

...A series of valuable patristic commentaries on the Bible is being published by the Evangelical Intervarsity Press...

...This is a subversive question...

...The most vehement opposition to ecumenism comes from the fundamentalist wings of each tradition, whose adherents assume that ecumenism can mean nothing but relativism and the in-stitutionalization of a mushy why-can't-we-all-get-along...

...It is possible to consider your own tradition true, even the most adequate way to express Christian truth, and still see what it may lack as an institution made up of human beings, and recognize that you may learn from someone whose way is different...

...e possess it...

...The results are not in-either modern development could lead to more unity among churches, or division along new lines...

...At the time of the schism, neither the Orthodox world nor the Catholic world doubted that the other had left the ancient church...

...It means that no one owns them or has an exclusive franchise on God's truth...

...Many of those who believe that Christian churches should cooperate in acts of charity and bear common witness are embarrassed by particular statements of the National and World Council of Churches...

...Ecumenism has forced churches to ask whether they really are apostolic, whether they really can be judged in light of the apostolic tradition and be seen to be part of it in a living and credible way...

...The ecumenical movement and, later in the twentieth century, Vatican II, are arguably as significant as both the schism that separated the Eastern and Western churches and the Reformation...

...Some remarkable things have happened as a result...