RESPONSE TO KINNAMON, BOUTENEFF, AND DANIELS

I am happy for chance to respond to thoughts of Michael Kinnamon, Peter Bouteneff, and David Daniels. (1) 1. Michael Kinnamon's dazzling list of elements in emerging ecumenical ecclesiology reminded me of idea of a kaleidoscope: All of parts are in picture, but each turn of kaleidoscope puts parts in a different relationship with one another. We could say that our churches each turn kaleidoscope differently, each emphasizing certain points. Also, we may notice that some of pieces are missing, or barely visible, in other's arrangement of elements. A first step in ecumenical dialogue is to agree on getting all of pieces into picture, as Kinnamon has done. A second ecumenical step is to configure pieces rightly. Lutherans argue that Martin Luther wanted to configure all of elements of church properly around Word of God, not eliminate any of them. In The Apostolicity of Church, 2006 study document of Lutheran-Roman Catholic International Commission on Unity, Lutheran members used this insight about Luther to show convergence with Roman Catholics on components necessary to church. (2) Luther, they argued, wanted to keep all of these necessary components but to reconfigure them rightly. We often differ on such configurations. To cite from Kinnamon's list: Some churches emphasize more that church is eschatological reality; others, a historical reality. (3) Some emphasize that ministry serves community, while others insist that ministry is part of community. (4) Our late colleague George Tavard sketched what he called an ecumenical ecctesiology in his 1992 book, The Church, Community of Salvation: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology, (5) wherein he tried to identify all of pieces and to see how they might be reconfigured. 2. I am sympathetic to Peter Bouteneff's presentation of how Orthodox Church sees talk about unity of church. (6) Like him, I come from a church communion that cannot accept denominationalism as adequate description of itself. Like him, I also endure suspicions of some of my Roman Catholic colleagues for my work in ecumenism, despite official commitment of my church communion to dialogue. But, I am not sure that I agree with Bouteneff that a common or neutral language to describe our task is immediate goal or even a possibility. If we thought of this task in same way, we would be further toward achievement of our goal than we are. Hence, part of task is to listen to different ways of even describing nature of church and to see why these different descriptions reveal obstacles toward achieving what Bouteneff calls Christian unity. (Vatican II speaks of the restoration of unity among all Christians in Decree on Ecumenism.) The place most important for shared language is in words of confession and of prayer, to which David Daniels has drawn our attention. I am much more uncomfortable when I am asked in a worship service to describe church in a way that seems wrong than when I hear those from another church use same words to describe their self-understanding. Agreed statements stand somewhere between language of worship and language of theological colleagues, and here Bouteneff's exhortation for more neutral language can be a salutary warning. (7) However, I do think that ecumenical dialogue also includes possibility of learning new languages--and even of dreaming in a new language, as one does when one learns it really well. The new language does not become our mother tongue, but in Canada we emphasize importance of bilingual and even multilingual communication; therefore, I think we should be ready to consider what new frameworks are made possible by another language. 3. Since I am Roman Catholic, I must say something about word subsistit, which I had hoped to avoid but must address since it was used. …

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