Part V

The Future of Ecclesial Dialogue

13

M AKING A C OMMON VISION OF

THE CHURCH POSSIBLE

William Henn

The final pages of a report on the responses by more than 150 churches to
what is undoubtedly one of the most widely known and appreciated ecumenical
documents of the twentieth century the Faith and Order Commission’s Baptism,
Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), adopted in Lima, Peru, in 1982—include the
following lines:

The search for Christian unity implies the search for common ecumenical
perspectives on ecclesiology. This need is strongly underlined by the
analysis of the responses to BEM which reveal many different
presuppositions but also convergences regarding the nature of the church . . .
In the light of the Lima document, to which Christian churches throughout
the world are responding, new momentum is given to the search for common
perspectives on ecclesiology . . . many responses to BEM requested that
 ecclesiology be made a major study in future Faith and Order work. Such an
ecclesiology in an ecumenical perspective must take into account the various
ideas of the church which reflect the churches’ different self-understanding
and their views on the nature of the church and its unity. It also requires the
search for basic ecclesiological principles, which could provide common
perspectives for the churches’ different ecclesiologies and serve as a
framework for their convergence. These principles could be appropriately
applied in different contextual situations in the life of the churches.

This chapter intends to share a few reflections related to the ecclesiology project
that flowed out of the process of responding to BEM and that have been central to
the work of the Faith and Order Commission for roughly the last twenty years.

The importance of this project is underscored by the fact that, shortly after
the foundation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948, its central
committee found it necessary to affirm in no uncertain terms that the council was
not committed to any particular ecclesiology. Instead, it wished to serve as an
instrument by means of which the churches could together seek to arrive at a
common vision of the nature and mission of the Church. The Toronto Statement of
1950 clarified the following points: the WCC was not, and never should become, a
“super-Church”—its purpose was not to negotiate unions of churches because that
could only be done by the churches them- selves. Membership is not based on a
particular view of the Church and its unity or imply that one considers one’s own
church’s view as merely relative. Even more, membership in the WCC “does not
imply that each church must regard the other member churches as churches in the
true and full sense of the word.” In some ways, the most difficult issue dividing
Christian communities from one another has been their differing and even opposed
convictions about the Church. The WCC was conceived as a fellowship of
churches who believe that the Church is one under the headship of Christ
according to the New Testament and who seek convergence and even consensus
about the ecclesiological issues that yet divide them. One could almost say that the
entire theological dialogue within the ecumenical movement has been aiming at
such convergence at the multilateral and bilateral levels. The major, classic
statements about unity received by the general assemblies of the WCC—the New
Delhi statement on visible unity of 1961, the Nairobi statement on conciliar
fellowship of 1975, the Canberra statement on communion of 1991, and the Porto
Alegre statement on the call to be the one Church of the creed of 2005—have all
been cumulative steps toward convergence and greater consensus about
ecclesiology.

THE PATH LEADING TO THE NEW CONVERGENCE STATEMENT

The immediate process leading to the production of the convergence

statement, entitled The Church: Towards a Common Vision, originated with the
Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order held in Santiago de Compostela in
1993. That conference harvested the important work accomplished since the
previous conference in 1963, especially the studies on Church and World, which
underlined the nature of the Church as sign and instrument of God’s saving design
for the world; Confessing the One Faith, which demonstrated an encouraging
consensus about the entire doctrinal content of the Creed, including what the creed
professes regarding the Church; and, especially, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry,
with its six published volumes of official responses. A careful analysis of the
official responses to BEM concluded with a list of several major ecclesiological
themes that could profitably be taken up for further study: the role of the Church in
God’s saving purpose, koinonia, the Church as a gift of the Word of God (creatura
verbi), the Church as mystery or sacrament of God’s love for the world, the Church
as the pilgrim people of God, and the Church as prophetic sign and servant of
God’s coming kingdom. The very theme of the Fifth World Conference, “Koinonia
in Faith, Life and Witness,” both reflected the three major studies mentioned
previously and anticipated the program devoted specifically to ecclesiology, which
would subsequently be a principal focus of the work of the Faith and Order
Commission.

After several years of papers, dialogue, and drafting, a first result was
published in time for the Harare General Assembly of the WCC in 1998 under the
title The Nature and Purpose of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common
Statement. It was a text of six chapters: “The Church of the Triune God,” “The
Church in History,” “The Church as Koinonia (Communion),” “Life in
Communion,” “Service in and for the World,” and “Following Our Calling: From
Converging Understandings to Mutual Recognition.” It was conceived as a
provisional text. A good number of responses were received from churches,
ecumenical organizations and councils, academic institutions, and individuals.
Many appreciative comments were complemented by constructive criticism. For
example, it seemed that Nature and Purpose needed further integration—how could
the Church as communion be treated separately in a third chapter apart from the
first chapter on the Church of the Triune God? Furthermore, some issues were
missing. There was no section on teaching authority and the topic of mission
seemed to receive little attention. Moreover, the World Conference at Santiago had
called for a study on a ministry in service to the universal unity of the Church,
which John Paul II had quoted in his letter on ecumenism, Ut unum sint, inviting
dialogue about the ministry of the Bishop of Rome. Yet Nature and Purpose
included no comment about such a ministry.

When time had been allowed for a sufficient number of these responses to
come in, the commission set out on revising its ecclesiology study, producing a
draft entitled The Nature and Mission of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a
Common Statement, which was presented to the general assembly of the WCC in
Porto Alegre in 2005 and sought to incorporate the suggestions from the various
responses. It was composed of four chapters: “The Church of the Triune God,”
“The Church in History,” “The Life of Communion,” and “In and for the World.”
The first chapter integrated much of the biblical material on the nature of the
Church as people of God, body of Christ, and temple of the Holy Spirit, with
biblical insights on the Church as communion (koinonia), with the theme of the
mission of the Church as servant of the kingdom and with the creedal affirmation
of the Church as one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic. The second chapter on history
tended to highlight the problems that afflict the Church. How can diversity be
harmonized with unity and what makes for legitimate diversity? How do the
churches understand the local church and how is it related to all other churches?
What factors make for a breaking of communion and for division? The third
chapter highlighted elements of communion that were often enumerated in the
classic statements from the general assemblies of the WCC: faith, baptism,
Eucharist, ministry, oversight, councils, and synods, with the themes of primacy
and authority now included. A final chapter more briefly explored the Church’s
service to the world in assisting those who suffer; defending the oppressed;
witnessing to the moral message of the Gospel; working for justice, peace, and the
protection of the environment; and generally seeking to promote a human society
more in keeping with the values of the King- dom of God. The response from the
churches was lighter and slower for this second document. Many were pleased that
the mission of the Church was given greater prominence, even having a place in
the title. But other comments were concerned that the use of the words nature and
mission would obscure the fact that the Church is by its very nature missionary.

Two particularly significant additional steps were taken in evaluating Nature

and Mission. First, the plenary commission of Faith and Order, with its 120
members representing the various churches, gathered in Crete from October 6 to
14, 2009. This brought together many who were participating in the commission
for the first time, and the meeting was structured to maximize their input into the
major projects of Faith and Order, especially the ecclesiology study. A major
suggestion at Crete was to shorten the text if possible and to make it more
contextual, more reflective of the lives of the churches throughout the world, and
more exciting. Eight months later, at Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia, in June 2010,
the standing commission of Faith and Order decided that the input from Crete,
along with other responses that had been sent in and, by then, amounted to 82 files
of suggestions, signaled the time to begin one final revision. It was felt that an
important component still missing was a substantial response from the Eastern and
Oriental Orthodox churches, and so an orthodox symposium was organized and
held in Cyprus in the spring of 2011 that included the participation of many
Orthodox churches and produced a substantial evaluation of Nature and Mission. A
major suggestion from that consultation was to integrate more clearly the material
on baptism, Eucharist, and ministry into the presentation of what is essential to the
life of the Church.

Extensive analysis of the responses and drafting already began in the latter
half of 2010 and intensified with the Eastern input in spring 2011, resulting in a
new version presented to the Standing Commission of Faith and Order in Gazzada,
north of Milan, in July 2011. Many comments were received, mostly quite
favorable, suggesting that the text needed to emphasize more clearly ways in which
progress had been made toward greater convergence and consensus, especially on
the ministry and in bilateral agreed statements. This was addressed by
strengthening some of the formulations and supporting them with notes that
substantiate some of the progress. Subsequently, several further drafting meetings
were held, and several veteran ecumenical experts, who had not participated in
working on the new draft, were consulted. Their suggestions, where deemed
helpful or appropriate, were incorporated into the text. Especially important was
the insistence on the need for an introduction that could briefly but clearly express
that the statement is meant as a convergence text—that is, a text like BEM—not a
study document and not a stage on the way to a further draft. As a convergence
text, it seeks to express large areas of agreement and to render more precise those
issues that call for more work. In June 2012, after further polishing and the
addition of minor adjustments, the Standing Commission of Faith and Order, by
unanimous consensus, approved the final draft of The Church: Towards a Common
Vision. That text was received with enthusiasm by the Central Committee of the
WCC several months later and was placed on the agenda for reception by the next
general assembly of the council held in Busan, South Korea, in late 2013.

The convergence text opens with a chapter expressing the origin of the
Church in the missio Dei, or God’s salvific plan for the world, and the need for
unity if the Church is to serve that plan in the best way possible. A second chapter
underlines especially the convictions that most Christian communities share about
the Church, as reflected in ecumenical dialogue at the multi- and bilateral levels.
The third chapter highlights growth in agreement about some of the more divisive
ecclesiological issues of the past and invites the churches to seek further
convergence and consensus about them. A fourth and final chapter returns to the
theme of the Church’s mission in the world, outlining some of the challenges that
Christians share in trying to be faithful to what they believe the Lord is calling
them to today. In a nutshell, the text flows from the origin of the Church in the
Father’s design of sending Christ and the Spirit in mission for the salvation of the
world to substantial convergences about how we view the Church, then to an
account of progress on controversial points with challenges to make further
progress, and to taking up the mission of the Church in responding to the needs of
human beings today. How can one account for the achievement of this new
convergence text given the ecclesiological divisions reflected in the Toronto
statement of 1950 mentioned at the beginning of this essay?

BREAKING THROUGH TO A C OMMON VISION

In his 1995 encyclical on Christian unity, Pope John Paul II repeated an idea
that is crucial to understanding and seeking unity in faith: “Ecumenical dialogue,
which prompts the parties involved to question each other, to understand each
other and to explain their positions to each other, makes surprising discoveries
possible. Intolerant polemics and controversies have made incompatible assertions
out of what was really the result of two different ways of looking at the same
reality. Nowadays we need to find the formula which, by capturing the reality in its
entirety, will enable us to move beyond partial readings and eliminate false
interpretations.”

The key to what the pope called “capturing the reality in its entirety” so as to
make true convergence and even consensus possible is to broaden the context in
which our formerly opposing positions were framed. I believe that there are two
undeniable and irreversible advances that substantially change the ecumenical
context and could ultimately make possible that degree of agreement about the
nature and mission of the Church, which is necessary and sufficient for full
ecclesial communion. One of these advances came not so much from ecumenical
dialogue but from the study of the Bible—that is, greater agreement about the
relation between the inspired Word of God as presented in scripture, on the one
hand, and tradition, on the other. The scientific study of the Bible led scholars to
conclude that there can be no complete opposition between scripture and tradition.
Scripture comes from tradition and tradition aims at an ongoing reappropriation of
scripture. Scripture must not and cannot intelligently be placed in opposition to
tradition. That said, scripture, as the inspired Word of God and supreme norm of
Christian life (see Vatican II, Dei verbum §§21–26; John Paul II, Ut unum sint
§79) is an indispensable mea- sure for discerning what of the tradition is truly of
God, allowing us not to confuse what is God’s will with merely human traditions
that believers develop and Jesus himself condemned when they obscured the will
of the Father (Mark 7:1–8). The churches entered a new stage in overcoming their
former tensions on this theme with Faith and Order’s famous statement “Scripture,
Tradition and Traditions” of 1963, which affirmed: “Thus we can say that we exist
as Christians by the Tradition of the Gospel (the paradosis of the kerygma) testified
in Scripture, transmitted in and by the Church through the power of the Holy
Spirit.”

The second advance is more directly the result of ecumenical dialogue,

especially between Lutherans and Catholics. It asserts that the Pauline, biblical
doctrine of justification by faith does not mean that a Christian has no
responsibility in responding to God’s grace and in seeking to live a holy life. At the
same time, the believer can never be said to have earned the grace of justification
by his or her works. The fact that we are saved by Christ’s death on the cross and
by his rising to life eternal must not and cannot be opposed to the obligation of
living as new creatures.

Both of these gains can have an impact on what we believe about the nature
and mission of the Church and can provide some of the needed framework for
overcoming our divisions about ecclesiology. These divisions derive largely from
two fundamental tensions that have the capability of quickly devolving into
disagreements. First, there is the tension between seeing the Church very positively
as a divinely ordered and essentially holy means or sacrament for the salvation of
the world, and the awareness that the Church is a community of sinners in
continual need of reform. A second tension is between seeing the Church as a
community for which the leadership of the threefold ordained ministry of bishop,
presbyter, and deacon in apostolic succession is part of God’s will, on the one
hand, and seeing the apostolicity of the Church as located within the faith of the
com- munity as a whole and many forms of ordained or even nonordained ministry
on the other. The tensions concerning holiness/sinfulness and concerning the
essential features of apostolicity will, I suspect, always remain until the end of time
and the full arrival of the Kingdom of God. But the gains concerning scripture and
tradition and concerning justification by faith can place these two tensions in a new
context and in such a way that we need no longer to be divided in faith about them.

With regard to the first tension, one need not choose between the Church
being a holy instrument or a sinful people, but can affirm both, and the agreement
about justification can help us see that. For example, consider the following words
from the new Faith and Order Church statement about the relation between the
Church and human sinfulness:
 35. As a Pilgrim community the Church contends with the reality of sin.
Ecumenical dialogue has shown that there are deep commonly held
convictions behind what have sometimes been seen as conflicting views
concerning the relation between the Church’s holiness and human sin. There
are significant differences in the way in which Christians articulate these
common convictions. For some, their tradition affirms that the Church is
sinless since, being the body of the sinless Christ, it cannot sin. Others
consider that it is appropriate to refer to the Church as sinning, since sin may
become systemic so as to affect the institution of the Church itself and,
although sin is in contradiction to the true identity of the Church, it is
nonetheless real.

36. Christ’s victory over sin is complete and irreversible, and by Christ’s
promise and grace Christians have confidence that the Church will always
share in the fruits of that victory. They also share the realization that, in this
present age, believers are vulnerable to the power of sin, both individually
and collectively. All churches acknowledge the fact of sin among believers
and its often grievous impact. All recognize the continual need for Christian
self-examination, penitence, conversion (metanoia), reconciliation and
renewal. Holiness and sin relate to the life of the Church in different and
unequal ways. Holiness expresses the Church’s identity according to the will
of God, while sin stands in contradiction to this identity (cf. Rom 6:1–11).

These two paragraphs illustrate that kind of progress toward “capturing the reality
in its entirety” John Paul wrote about in Ut unum sint. They suggest that both sides
on this issue share much in common but assign varying degrees of emphasis to
their commonly held values. Moreover, the agreement about justification allows
Christians to overcome or at least to reduce their disagreements concerning the
instrumentality or sacramentality of the Church. All can acknowledge that the
Church is a privileged means for bringing about God’s design of salvation, without
jeopardizing the fact that God is the ultimate, primary, and indispensable agent in
that saving activity. Agreement that the Church as a whole serves as a means and
instrument of God’s salvific design through the power of the Holy Spirit also opens
a wider framework for considering the various rites that so many churches
celebrate, not only baptism and Eucharist but also confirmation, mar- riage,
ordination, and other rites as well.

Similarly, the tension over ministry has been placed in a new context. The
greater agreement about the relation between scripture and tradition has allowed
churches to evaluate the development of ministry in the early church in a more
positive light. In addition, dialogues about the need and presence of a ministry of
episcopé in the various churches open the possibility for eventual unity on this
issue as well. Consider the following passage from the text: “Almost all Christian
communities today have a formal structure of ministry. Frequently this structure is
diversified and reflects, more or less explicitly, the three fold pattern of episcopos-
presbyteros-diaconos. Churches remain divided, however, as to whether or not the
‘historic episcopate’ (meaning bish- ops ordained in apostolic succession back to
the earliest generations of the Church), or the apostolic succession of ordained
ministry more generally, is something intended by Christ for his community.”

The Church: Towards a Common Vision includes a number of foot-notes to

support what seems to be a growing convergence concerning ordained ministry.
No one can reasonably deny the disastrous effects of developments that led the
figure of the bishop to be sometimes transformed into that of a civic authority,
drawn from the class of the nobility, with little or no pastoral ministry. From my
personal point of view, the fact that the grandest building in many cities of Europe
is or was the palace of the local bishop is lamentable and even scandal ous.
Nevertheless, the need for oversight if the Church is to enjoy full communion
within and among all local churches is so obvious as to be practically self-evident.
The new text on the Church suggests that most Christians today are prepared to
acknowledge this need. Another significant ecumenical gain regarding ministry
that is included in the new text had already been registered in the first world
conference on Faith and Order at Lausanne in 1927 when it observed that the three
predominant types of church order among divided Christian communities were
episcopal, presbyteral/synodal, and congregational. The values underlying these
three types were seen as complementary and were translated in the BEM
discussion of ministry by the three adjectives “personal, collegial, and communal.”
That all ministry of oversight, even at the level of the universal Church, should be
characterized by these three qualities is also affirmed by the new convergence text
(§§52, 56).

Tensions will always remain within the Church; they have been present from
the beginning. But with continual conversion under the power of the Holy Spirit
and the Spirit’s ongoing guidance, it is possible to identify some of the supposed
oppositions that divided Christians in the past as false oppositions, as John Paul
II’s insight from §38 of Ut unum sint, cited previously, suggests. The authentic and
durable gains concerning the relation between scripture and tradition and
concerning justification by faith can help the churches overcome their fundamental
disagreements in the area of ecclesiology.

CONCLUSION

In today’s postmodern world that celebrates relativity, contextuality,

perspective, and diversity, and that is skeptical of claims to truth, the very idea of
unity could seem oppressive and stifling. The more different we can be, the better.
Many today may not see the unity of the Church as attractive or desirable. If that is
so, a convergence text like Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, now concerning the
Church and its unity, may be facing, at least in some circles, a very skeptical
audience. And yet, the entire ecumenical movement has from its beginning been
based on the conviction that Jesus Christ himself wants all his followers to be one.
I find it helpful and hopeful in this regard to recall the New Testament
ecclesiological teaching that the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:25–32). Just
as it would be offensive to the sense of the faithful (sensus fidelium) to think of
Christ as having more than one bride, so it would be unacceptable to acquiesce to a
Christian community divided into many churches that are not in full communion
with one another. The churches must work to arrive at full communion—at visible
unity, as the bylaws of the Faith and Order Commission state—even if that is
countercultural and goes against the grain of contemporary sentiment. Christ
prayed for the unity of his disciples on the night he gave them his body and blood
in the Eucharist, on the eve of his sacrifice on the cross. Christians today need to
try to bring to full realization in the lives of their communities those words they
pronounce every day: “Thy will be done.”