Witnessing the Ecumenical Future Together

(Dedicated to the memory of George Vandervelde) I have been asked to speak about the ecumenical future and about how we might it and for it together. I dedicate my comments to the memory of George Vandervelde, who died January of 2007. Many of us remember him as our ecumenical colleague and friend from the Christian Reformed Church Canada. George Vandervelde was an evangelical theologian deeply committed to the unity of the Church, and he regularly attended the annual conference of the North American Academy of Ecumenists, along with many other ecumenical commissions and meetings. From him I learned again the insight that witnessing together to the risen Christ brings us closer to the unity that Christ wills for his disciples. This is an important sense of witness the New Testament, one that was the theme for the 2010 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: You are witnesses of these things (Lk. 24:48). Vandervelde's to Christ had a permanent effect on those with whom he worked, and it teach us something about what such witnessing means. Like the missionaries who met together Edinburgh 1910, Vandervelde also emphasized the link between mission and the unity of the Church. (1) He argued that a renewed focus on mission could bring together advocates for Faith and Order issues with those concerned about Life and Work issues. In this essay I touch briefly on three areas: (1) method: how to the unity of the Church the future demands a new vision of the divisions of the past; (2) content: what topics must still be addressed so that we achieve a common witness; and (3) companions: how the future is experienced as we together the present. I. Method. Throwing a New Light on the Past To together an ecumenical future, we must change our view of a divided While it may seem obvious, the part played ecumenical dialogue by changing our view of the past is not always noticed or discussed. But, fact, ecumenical dialogue means revisiting the memories of our history and seeing them a new way. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification speaks of seeing once-divisive questions and condemnations in a new light. (2) By shining this new light into the darkness of past disputes about justification, Catholics and Lutherans were able to see these past disputes more clearly and to overcome the divisions caused. Remembering the past becomes a means of reform for the sake of a future together. If we take the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification as an example, we also see that the condemnations of the past were not taken lightly and that the past was not disavowed. The doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century on justification were not simply pointless, the Joint Declaration makes clear, and they remain for us 'salutary warnings' to which we must attend our teaching and practice. (3) Yet, the Joint Declaration explains, Developments have taken place that not only make possible but also require the churches to examine the divisive questions and condemnations and see them a new light. (4) Rereading church history together often has this effect of shining a new light on history that changes our perspective on the Members of the Mennonite-Roman Catholic international dialogue commission sought to develop a common interpretation of a divided past that could lead to a shared new memory and understanding. A shared memory, believe, can free us from the prison of the past. (5) At first, Mennonites and Roman Catholics from this international dialogue reported experiences of anger and fear at the prospect of reexamining the past with members of a church had long regarded with suspicion, but explained that the atmosphere of openness the rereading of Church history together was invaluable. (6) It allowed them to reexamine not only their perspectives on the sixteenth-century Reformation period with its painful memories of the persecution and martyrdom of Anabaptists both Catholic and Protestant lands but also the different viewpoints of Mennonites and Roman Catholics on the Constantinian era of the early Church and its meaning for the mission of the Church the world. …

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