Friday, January 3, 2014
Ecumenical Review on The Church: Towards a Common Vision
Monday, December 9, 2013
Devotional reflection for December 9, Second Week of Advent
December 9 (Nahum 1:15; James 3:18)
On his very first Christmas, we began reading with our son Can You Say Peace? by Karen Katz. Besides demonstrating the wonderfully varied ways children around the world say “peace” in their own languages, the book declares that “all around the world today, children will wish for peace, hope for peace, and ask for peace.” The children—and adults—of the world share a hope for peace because all people are created in the image of the God whose hope for the world is peace. We also share a hope for peace because the world currently lacks the peace for which God created the world and toward which God is moving the world.
It’s appropriate that the first week of Advent’s focus on hope is followed by the second week’s focus on peace, for “peace” sums up in a word the biblical vision of the world for which God and people hope. Today’s text from Nahum is a call to envision this future peace: “Look! On the mountains the feet of one who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace!” (1:15). The whole book of Nahum is a contrast of two stories with different end-pictures: the story of violence that underwrites the present evil order of things, epitomized by Nineveh, city of the violent Assyrian empire, which ends in “devastation, destruction, and desolation” (2:10), and the radically other story of God’s goal of peace for all creation, epitomized by Jerusalem, city of those who seek the peace of God’s reign. Today’s text from James makes the same contrast, for the antidote to the diabolical wisdom of the world that leads to conflict is the heavenly wisdom that leads to “a harvest of righteousness…sown in peace by those who make peace” (3:18).
As we join God in wishing, hoping, and asking for peace this Advent, let us also join God in working for the peace for which we hope. Such pictures of the end, suggested the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, are “enough to make me change my whole life” (Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology, and Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett [University of California Press, 1967], p. 57). Nahum tells us how to change our lives in light of this end: “Celebrate your festivals”—in other words, worship and in so doing be transformed by and become participants in the story of the peace of God’s reign, and “fulfill your vows”—in other words, live out the practice of peacemaking mentioned by James that we take on in our covenantal vows to live as the people of God, joining God in what God is doing to move the world toward its end of peace.
We won’t have to look very hard to find where God is working for peace. Wherever there is war, violence, division, and interpersonal conflict—in short, wherever there is broken relationship—God is already at work to realize the divine hope of peaceful community. Let us be open to opportunities to join in during this Advent season.
(Download the complete 2013 Gardner-Webb University Advent Devotional Book)
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Georgian Baptist-Orthodox dialogue text published
In 1979–80 conversations were held between representatives of the Orthodox Church of Georgia and the ‘Evangelical Christians-Baptists’ of Georgia in a situation of oppression by the Communist state. The agreed document that emerged from this dialogue is printed here, and is preceded by an article which expounds it from a Baptist perspective, sets it in the wider context of Baptist theological and ecumenical theology, and relates it to the practices of the present-day Baptist Church of Georgia. The stated purpose of the dialogue was to achieve reconciliation and unity between Orthodox and Baptist Christians in Georgia, first by agreeing substantial matters of doctrine and then by adopting a common liturgy and common sacramental life. Among the range of subjects reviewed, including the Blessed Virgin Mary, the saints, nationalism, confession and icons, the discussion on baptism is perhaps the most adventurous, and remains promising though flawed. The document does not represent the views of the present-day Orthodox Church of Georgia, and its contents clearly reflect the political pressures under which it was composed. However, it is of historical interest, and some will see it as a sign of hope for co-operation in the mission of God.
The full text of this article is published online by Taylor & Francis, the journal's publisher, in advance of its print publication as part of a rapid online publication program explained as follows: "For most journals, accepted articles are copy-edited and typeset and appear in a 'Latest articles' list on the journal's webpage. This counts as formal publication. They are identical to the print edition in every way except that they lack page spans. They may be formally cited using their DOI and year of publication. These 'Latest articles' are later assigned to a particular issue of the journal, and given page numbers." Thus the time during which the article is available in this fashion may be limited; it is possible that at some point after being assigned to a specific print issue that article may only be downloaded through libraries that have electronic access subscriptions to Taylor & Francis journals. In the meantime, readers of Ecclesial Theology may try to access the article by clicking on the hyperlinked title above.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Global Baptist leader addresses World Council of Churches in unity plenary (VIDEO)
A previous post reported on Baptist World Alliance General Secretary Neville Callam's address to the World Council of Churches in a plenary session on unity during the Tenth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan, South Korea on November 5. Here is a video recording of the unity plenary (unfortunately audio and video are not fully synchronized); Callam begins speaking at 48:40 (click on this hyperlink to watch in a separate window on YouTube at the point that begins Callam's address). Callam's address is a grateful celebration of the progress that has been made toward full visible unity, an honest lament of the churches' failures in seeking this unity and incisive identification of contemporary impediments to the quest for visible Christian unity, and a stirring challenge to the churches to live into Jesus' prayer that his followers might be one in a way that the world can see, that the world might become unified under the Lordship of Christ.
I hope readers of Ecclesial Theology will listen to Callam's address and the other addresses in the unity plenary in their entirety. Below is a transcription of a portion of the "lament" portion of Callam's remarks:
We have reason to lament the painful divisions that still remain. We are the body of Christ, and we should reflect the koinonia inspired by the vision of the perfect unity existing in the Godhead. We are not what we should be. We lament persistence in cherishing our peculiarities and in failing to draw sufficiently from the from the well of divine provision that is able to quench our thirst for unity in the truth. We lament our inclination to seek in other expressions of the church a replica of the church to which we belong. We have not been content to seek in other churches, as much as in our own, signs of the one church of our Lord Jesus, nor have we been sufficiently vigorous in giving expression to the depth of communion in faith that already exists.
[Another previous post reproduces a BWA press release summarizing Callam's address and reporting on participation in the assembly by at least 77 Baptists from 24 countries.]
Friday, November 8, 2013
Baptist participation in World Council of Churches 10th Assembly
Today (November 8) the Baptist World Alliance issued the following press release regarding the noteworthy degree of Baptist participation in the Tenth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan, South Korea October 30-November 8:
BWA leader appeals for church unity
Washington, DC (BWA)--Baptist World Alliance (BWA) General Secretary Neville Callam said the unity of the church, wherever and whenever it exists, should be celebrated.
Callam, who was speaking during the 10th assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Busan, South Korea, lauded the work of the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC to aid the church in its quest for visible unity. The commission has published such ground breaking documents as Baptism Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), which came about through extensive theological engagement in the Christian ecumenical community. He argued for detailed study of the most recent Faith and Order documents, The Church: Towards a Common Vision and Baptism: Towards Mutual Recognition.
Callam also took note of bilateral theological dialogues that have taken place between various Christian traditions. These, he said, have resulted in an "increase in understanding" and have "facilitated responsible rapprochement between Christian communions."
Despite these and other signs of progress, Callam acknowledged that disunity is a stain on the church's life and witness. There is "persistence in cherishing our peculiarities" and an unwillingness to see "signs of the one church of our Lord Jesus" in other churches other than one's own. Callam asserted that the church has failed to "reflect the unity for which our Lord prayed in John 17."
Such disunity has "compromised our faithfulness in mission;" has led to a failure to confront social and other injustices such as racism, poverty, exploitation and disease; has resulted in self-centeredness that leads to the degradation of creation; and has caused a failure to "respect peoples of other faiths who are all creatures of the one God and inhabitants of a shared planet."
The appropriate response to Christian disunity, the BWA leader claimed, is "to repent of the sin of our divisions, to petition God's forgiveness and to pray for the joy of full communion."
Callam called the assembly's attention to serious challenges that compromise the mission of the church because of disunity. These include conflicting positions on moral issues, which pose difficulty for the unity of the church. "Churches are actually participating in the entrenchment of divisions in society by offering disparate teaching on issues that profoundly affect people's lives. The current situation is intolerable."
The solution, Callam asserted, is for the church "to commit, with greater urgency, to the search for convergence around the sources of authority in the church, and on how to interpret responsibly the sources we regard as authoritative."
Callam urged the Faith and Order Commission to provide additional resources, in a variety of media formats, to aid persons involved in assisting the church's quest for unity, especially at the international level.
At least 77 Baptists from 24 countries, including BWA President John Upton, attended the WCC meetings, held October 30 to November 8 in Busan, South Korea's second largest metropolis after capital city Seoul. The assembly, normally held every seven years, elected a 150-member Central Committee that includes eight Baptists. The Central Committee serves as the chief governing body of the WCC until the next assembly. It meets every 12 to 18 months and is responsible for carrying out the policies adopted by the assembly, reviewing and supervising WCC programs and for adopting the budget.
Four BWA General Council members were elected to the WCC Central Committee - Samson Ayokunle from Nigeria, Yam Kho Pau from Myanmar, Karl Johnson from Jamaica and Carroll Baltimore of the United States. Other Baptist Central Committee members are Marceline Mbingasani Maluavanga from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joyanta Adhikari from Bangladesh, and June Totten and Angelique Walker-Smith from the US.
Note: This is an experiment in posting via iPhone using the Blogger app. Please pardon any resulting formatting oddities.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Global Baptist leader addresses World Council of Churches in unity plenary (updated)
.jpg) |
| Neville Callam (photo courtesy WCC) |
The Rt. Rev. Alan Abernethy, Bishop of the Diocese of Connor in the Church of Ireland, summarized Callam's address in a post to the Diocese of Connor web site:
The Rev Dr Neville Callam, General Secretary of the Baptist Alliance, Jamaica, encouraged us to give thanks for what has happened already. He also suggested three challenges:
1. We need to find convergence on the sources we find authoritative.
2. We should foster theological thinking with our young people on unity.
3. Let us not limit our thinking and actions to being textual.
He also prayed God would keep us restless on our journey.
Callam's address generated an enthusiastic Twitter response, with several participants in the WCC assembly tweeting excerpts from Callam's remarks that were re-tweeted by many other Twitter users (dates of tweets below are EST and thus dated the day prior to the November 5 plenary in Busan at which Callam spoke):
Susan Johnson
"We face the scandal of our disunity." - Neville Callam #WCC10thAssembly
Neville Callam #WCC 3 défis 1) les décisions des Eglises sur les questions morales endurcissent ces positions créent nouvelles divisions
As a Baptist ecumenical theologian, I am proud that the global Baptist community was represented on the program of the WCC plenary session on unity by Callam and gratified that his address has been so well received by these representatives of the church catholic. Anyone who has heard Callam speak will concur that "sa voix est magnifique"!
Update: The November 6 issue of Madang, the daily newspaper of the assembly, includes a story that references Callam's remarks on page 1 and a photograph of Callam on page 7 (click on hyperlink to view).
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Global Baptist leader addresses World Council of Churches in unity plenary
|
| Neville Callam (photo courtesy WCC) |
The Rt. Rev. Alan Abernethy, Bishop of the Diocese of Connor in the Church of Ireland, summarized Callam's address in a post to the Diocese of Connor web site:
The Rev Dr Neville Callam, General Secretary of the Baptist Alliance, Jamaica, encouraged us to give thanks for what has happened already. He also suggested three challenges:
1. We need to find convergence on the sources we find authoritative.
2. We should foster theological thinking with our young people on unity.
3. Let us not limit our thinking and actions to being textual.
He also prayed God would keep us restless on our journey.
Callam's address generated an enthusiastic Twitter response, with several participants in the WCC assembly tweeting excerpts from Callam's remarks that were re-tweeted by many other Twitter users (dates of tweets below are EST and thus dated the day prior to the November 5 plenary in Busan at which Callam spoke):
Susan Johnson
"We face the scandal of our disunity." - Neville Callam #WCC10thAssembly
Neville Callam #WCC 3 défis 1) les décisions des Eglises sur les questions morales endurcissent ces positions créent nouvelles divisions
As a Baptist ecumenical theologian, I am proud that the global Baptist community was represented on the program of the WCC plenary session on unity by Callam and gratified that his address has been so well received by these representatives of the church catholic. Anyone who has heard Callam speak will concur that "sa voix est magnifique"!
Friday, November 1, 2013
Baptists and the veneration of the saints
Shouldn’t Baptist churches retrieve the practice of venerating the saints, that is, engaging in corporate worship acts designed not to worship the saints, but to remember, honor, learn from, and celebrate saints from our Baptist family and from other Christian communions? Until we regularly include commemoration of the saints in our worship celebrations, we will continue to neglect the opportunity to give proper value to those from our past who have borne courageous witness to faithful discipleship. Commemorative acts done in our Sunday morning services would provide a suitable accompaniment for the tradition some have already developed as part of their Vacation Bible School program, in which stories are told of great spiritual leaders worthy of emulation.... (Read the full post on the BWA General Secretary's Blog)
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Church: Towards a Common Vision
This is the first major ecumenical convergence text commended to the churches for study and response to be issued since the landmark 1982 document Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Faith and Order Paper No. 111; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982) [BEM]. The new text The Church: Towards a Common Vision has taken into account the responses of the churches to BEM and is rooted in twenty years of work that included the drafting of, responses to, and revision of the predecessor documents The Nature and Purpose of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement (Faith and Order Paper No. 181; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1998) and The Nature and Mission of the Church. A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement (Faith and Order Paper No. 198; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 2005).
I represented the Baptist World Alliance as a member of the WCC Plenary Commission on Faith and Order that met in Crete in October 2009. One of our tasks during this meeting was to discuss the 2005 paper The Nature and Mission of the Church. A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement in working groups and plenary session and to offer feedback that was taken into account in the drafting of The Church: Towards a Common Vision. The paragraphs below from the preface of The Church: Towards a Common Vision explain the background, process, and goals of this new convergence text:
For twenty years, the delegated representatives of the Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, Evangelical, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches in a World Conference on Faith and Order (1993), three Plenary Commissions on Faith and Order (1996, 2004, 2009), eighteen meetings of the Standing Commission, and countless drafting meetings have sought to uncover a global, multilateral and ecumenical vision of the nature, purpose, and mission of the Church. The churches have responded critically and constructively to two earlier stages on the way to a common statement. The Commission on Faith and Order responds to the churches with The Church: Towards a Common Vision, its common – or convergence – statement on ecclesiology. The convergence reached in The Church represents an extraordinary ecumenical achievement.There are at least two distinct, but deeply interrelated, objectives in sending The Church to the churches for study and official response. The first is renewal. As a multilateral ecumenical text, The Church cannot be identified exclusively with any one ecclesiological tradition. In the long process from 1993-2012, the theological expressions and ecclesial experiences of many churches have been brought together in such a way that the churches reading this text may find themselves challenged to live more fully the ecclesial life; others may find in it aspects of ecclesial life and understanding which have been neglected or forgotten; others may find themselves strengthened and affirmed. As Christians experience life-long growth into Christ, they will find themselves drawing closer to one another, and living into the biblical image of the one body: “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”The second objective is theological agreement on the Church. As important as the convergence achieved by Faith and Order in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry was the official response process that followed. The six published volumes of responses manifested the varying levels of documented convergences among the churches themselves on the key questions around baptism, eucharist and ministry. The effects of the ecclesial convergence surfaced by Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry toward Christian unity are well-documented and ongoing. The responses to The Church: Towards a Common Vision will not only evaluate the convergence reached by Faith and Order but also reflect the level of convergence on ecclesiology among the churches. Just as the convergence on baptism in the responses to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry gave rise to a fresh impetus toward mutual recognition of baptism, similar ecclesial convergence on ecclesiology will play a vital role in the mutual recognition between the churches as they call one another to visible unity in one faith and in one eucharistic fellowship.“Ecclesial responses” for the Commission on Faith and Order includes the churches that are members of the Commission and the fellowship of churches in the World Council of Churches. It is also hoped that those churches that are new to the ecumenical movement will accept the invitation to study and comment on the text. The Commission also welcomes responses from ecclesial bodies, such as national and regional councils of churches and the Christian World Communions, whose official dialogues among themselves have contributed so much to the convergence reflected in The Church. The specific questions posed by Faith and Order to the churches to guide their response process are found at the end of the Introduction to The Church. The questions for study and response are theological, practical, and pastoral. The Commission requests that official responses be sent to the Faith and Order secretariat at the World Council of Churches no later than 31 December 2015.I hope all readers of Ecclesial Theology will download and read The Church: Towards a Common Vision and contemplate how their churches might respond to the ecclesial vision proposed by this document.
Monday, October 28, 2013
10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches: you, too, can participate
WCC assembly ready to open, watch from afar
25 October 2013
Final preparations are underway for the opening of the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea.
At the Sansung Presbyterian Church in Busan, more than 50 volunteers gathered Thursday and Friday, 24 to 25 October, to pack the welcome bags for assembly delegates and several thousand other participants who are expected to attend the 10-day assembly.
The bags include an array of assembly publications including worship and Bible study materials, programme and resource book and information about the work of the WCC since the last assembly, held in 2006 at Porto Alegre, Brazil.
During the two days of work, the volunteers individually filled some 3,000 bags with books and other gifts for the assembly participants.
The assembly, which has the theme “God of Life, lead us to justice and peace”, opens 30 October with an opening prayer service in which some 5,000 people, including 2,500 Koreans, will participate.
The opening service will be broadcast through an online live stream from the Christian Broadcast System in Korea, the oldest Christian television network in Korea.
The live stream will broadcast several other events from the WCC assembly. A schedule of programming is now available on the WCC assembly website.
In addition to a number of live stream broadcasts throughout the assembly, access to the assembly from afar will be facilitated through a number of other sources.
The WCC Assembly website will feature daily news stories and updates about the assembly.
For tablets and mobile phones, a downloadable free mobile application that will feature daily stories, photos and links to videos from the assembly is available through the iTunes Store and Google Market.
Each day a 15-minute video broadcast, Madang Live, will be available on You Tube and show highlights and feature stories from the assembly.
And the assembly will be trending through social media networks such as the WCC Twitter site, @oikoumene, @OlavTveit and the assembly Twitter site, @wcc2013.
The WCC Assembly Facebook event is now a running space on social media, engaging some 600 people from around the world through sharing of information, articles and links about the assembly. Information on the visitors’ programme organized by the Korean Host Committee of the WCC has also been made accessible through wcc2013.kr (in Korean).
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