Introduction to N.A.A.E. Presentations: Remembering and Conversion, Companions and Allies, and Our Ecumenical Future

air was pleasantly crisp in Montreal for this Floridian when the North American Academy of Ecumenists gathered for its 2010 Annual Conference on the weekend of September 24-26. While our lodging was at a local hotel, all of our meetings and the banquet were held in the fellowship hall of Saint James the Apostle Anglican Church. Many of us found the fifteen-minute walk a bonus moment for being able to take in and reflect on the rich discussion generated by the presentations. theme for the 2010 Conference of the Academy was the somewhat unwieldy title, The Next 100 Years: New and Renewed Strategies for the Ecumenical Mission. brochure described the gathering this way: Centenary of the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh 1910, the onset of the modern ecumenical movement, is an introspective moment for many who are seeking direction for Christian mission in the 21st century. Based on a critical assessment of the status of the world, a new vision of God's purposes for creation in Christ, a renewed spirituality and mission ethos need to be developed in the life of the churches worldwide. This Montreal conference will explore ways of witnessing to Christ while acknowledging the religious plurality in a secular society. What is the meaning of world evangelization today? How do we bear witness to the uniqueness of Jesus in a multi-religious world? I will leave it to each reader to determine how well those two questions were addressed by the presenters of the papers. My perspective on these questions has changed since the conference theme was first conceived. Initially, I thought we were asking fairly definitive questions, the responses to which would provide a range of options for comparison, contrast, and, ideally, selection. My mind, however, now sees the questions as invitations for conversation. As though we are disciples on the road, talking of the things we have experienced, trying to name the burning in our hearts, much of what we have received as revelation surely evokes a sense of being at the hearth of God; yet, in our globalized, interactive, cross-cultural context, the valuations and surmises that once were accepted as integral to that revelation no longer always generate the kind of assurance and commitment they once did. We have our various models for witnessing to Christ. We surely must share them with one another, even as we offer them to the world. challenge today is, in the simplest terms, the same as Edinburgh 1910 faced: How are our various Christian models for witnessing perceivable as of a unity rather than a disruptive disunity? Edinburgh 1910 approached that question with the modernist's sense of cultural dominance. Thankfully, I believe, we cannot pitch our ecumenical quest in a colonial mode any longer, but, if our witnessing is not about creating colonies of religioculture, what is it about? That is the conversation that disciples are having along the way. presenters in Montreal have been engaged for some time in this conversation on the church's mission and authentic Christian witness in an interreligious world. Dr. Thomas F. Best retired in 2007 as the director of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. Prof. Gregory Baum, Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Religious Studies, McGill University, Montreal, participated in Vatican II and edited Ecumenist for many years. Hegumen Philip Riabykh is Vice Chair of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate in Moscow. Dr. Catherine E. Clifford is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Vice Dean in the Faculty of Theology, Saint Paul University, Ottawa. Their four presentations framed the conversation in Montreal. To them a panel brought reflection on specific areas of interest. Two of the four reflections are included here--those of the Rev. Dr. Karen A. Hamilton, Secretary General, Canadian Council of Churches; and the Rev. …

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