Faith and Order

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Wainwright
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
Consensus Document ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Vision

Generically, ‘faith and order’ designates the contents of doctrinal belief and the patterns of social and governmental structure that mark the historically varied communities that claim the name and status of ‘church’. Concern with these closely connected areas has been central to the worldwide ecumenical movement since the early twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, which has the overall aim of calling the churches to the goal of visible unity in order that the world may believe. It considers the activities and organization of the Commission, and various fruits of its work across a range of issues, including the apostolic faith, anthropological and moral issues, tradition, and ecclesiology. It particularly highlights the consensus document on ‘Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry’ (1982), and the process culminating in the report: ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ (2013).

Is Christ Divided?

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
Brian Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Strategy ◽  
World Council ◽  
Protestant Christians ◽  
The Church ◽  
India And China

This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement typically begin with the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in June of 1910, which assembled some 1,215 Protestant delegates from various parts of the globe to devise a more effective common strategy for the evangelization of the world. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the Edinburgh conference has been widely identified as the birthplace of the formal ecumenical movement. Without it, there would be no World Council of Churches. Yet serious attempts to bridge divisions between Protestant Christians were already under way in India and China before 1910. Furthermore, the World Missionary Conference was precisely that—a gathering of mission executives and missionaries convened to consider questions of missionary policy. Delegates represented missionary agencies rather than churches, and discussion of questions of doctrine and church order was forbidden, in deference to the Church of England, whose endorsement would not have been given if the conference had been expected to discuss matters of faith and order with Nonconformists. The chapter then looks at the failure and success of the ecumenical movement.

Morals

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Root
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reflection ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ethical Teaching ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Liberation Movements ◽  
The Church

Ethics has rarely in the past been a cause of church-dividing dispute, but recently it has developed into a source of contention. The early ecumenical movement sought to give an agreed moral witness. Conferences at Stockholm (1925), Oxford (1937), and Geneva (1967) developed a tradition of ecumenical moral reflection within the World Council of Churches. Profound changes came to this tradition as emphasis shifted after 1967 towards a ‘contextual liberation ecumenism’, focusing on solidarity with liberation movements of the oppressed. More recently, ethics has been taken up in ecumenical dialogues. Dialogues have discussed specific moral issues (e.g. divorce, war, homosexuality) as well as more general questions of the relation of ethics to the unity of the church. While some dialogues have reported a fundamental agreement of ethical outlook, some recent dialogues have found significant differences, extending from questions related to sexuality to broader issues of the sources of ethical teaching.

Liturgy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen B. Westerfield Tucker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Liturgical Music ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
Liturgical Movement ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
Liturgical Texts ◽  
World Council

From their emergence early in the twentieth century, the liturgical movement and the ecumenical movement, the latter particularly represented by the deliberations of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, both called for and shaped ecumenical discourse on the nature of worship, the content and shape (ordo) of liturgy, sacraments and sacramentality, the practices of worship, and liturgical leadership and participation. This chapter highlights the history and contributions of both of these movements and notes the confluence of the two streams in the recognition of the centrality of worship for Christian life and mission. Attention also focuses on the ecumenical sharing of liturgical music, common liturgical texts, and lectionaries, and the ongoing question of ecumenical worship.

Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam DeVille
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The chapter traces developments in ecclesiology through the twentieth century, as the ecumenical movement unfolded, and raises questions about the relationship between the church and the communion of the Persons of the Trinity, and about the nature of the Church as eucharistic and sacramental. Further more practical questions about authority, primacy, and synodality (or conciliarity) are also examined in light of the work of multilateral ecumenical dialogues (especially within the World Council of Churches), and bilateral dialogues, particularly the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the international Roman Catholic–Orthodox theological dialogue. Considerable progress has been made on all these questions, but new issues have recently arisen, and these are briefly treated, including questions of imperfect communion, of the ordination of women and of those in same-sex relationships, and questions of geographical scope relative to jurisdiction and canonical territory.

Pentecostal and Charismatic

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Telford Work
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Charismatic Christianity

Accounts of Pentecostal ecumenism tend to take two basic shapes. In one, the story of Pentecostal and charismatic ecumenism is subsumed into the wider course of twentieth-century ecumenism, whose centre has been the World Council of Churches. The other regards Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity as an ecumenical movement in its own right, expressed in innumerable informal relationships and recently embodied in the Global Christian Forum. These two popular visions often keep Pentecostals, charismatics, and mainstream ecumenists talking past one another. An inventory of the gifts offered, gifts received, and gifts withheld or rejected among these parties in twentieth- and twenty-first-century ecumenism leads to a different interpretation of their interrelationship. The ecumenical movement at large and Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity itself are both among the renewing tides in Christ’s ecclesial ecumene. The most significant Pentecostal/charismatic contribution to ecumenism may be its own spirit, and vice versa.

Porto Alegre 2006: Called to be the One Church: Ecumenism beyond its Crisis?

Exchange ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anton Houtepen
Keyword(s):  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
Religious Plurality ◽  
Church Unity ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The One ◽  
Economic Injustice ◽  
The Church

AbstractFrom 9-23 February 2006 the World Council of Churches held its 9th Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brasil with the theme God, in your grace, transform the world. It gathered in an atmosphere of crisis in the ecumenical movement, caused by global political and religious developments, post-modern thinking on the value of plurality and difference and by the slow reception of ecumenical agreements. The Assembly, though, became a sign of hope beyond the ecumenical crisis. Its reflections and proposals on Globalisation and economic injustice, on Christian identity and religious plurality and on Church Unity and the Mission of the Church demonstrate a matured ecumenical and ecclesiological awareness, strengthened by a new method of decision-making by consensus. The document Called to be the one Church might be seen as the constitutional basis for a reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement and as a refinement of the Toronto Declaration of 1950. It formulates a matrix of catholicity and of a legitimate diversity of church forms within an essential convergence about its structures of continuity and mission.

The Church: Towards a Common Vision

Exchange ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-249
Author(s):  
Radu Bordeianu
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Vision ◽  
The Way

The 2013 convergence document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (ctcv) incorporates several aspects of the response of the Napa Inter-Orthodox Consultation to The Nature and Mission of the Church (nmc) which, as its subtitle suggests, was A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement, namely The Church. Eastern and Oriental Orthodox responders (jointly!) point to the imprecise use of the term, ‘church’, the World Council of Churches (wcc)’s understanding of ‘the limits of the Church’, and to the ‘branch theory’ implicit in nmc, an ecclesiology toned down in ctcv. Bordeianu proposes a subjective recognition of the fullness of the church in one’s community as a possible way forward. Simultaneously, Orthodox representatives have grown into a common, ecumenical understanding of the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the church’s work for justice; attentiveness to the role of women in the church; and accepting new forms of teaching authority in an ecumenical context. The positions of various churches are no longer parallel monologues, but reflect earnest change and convergence.

scholarly journals The Ecumenical Value of Comparative Church Law: Towards the Category of Christian Law

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 135-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Doe
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Regulatory Systems ◽  
Global Christianity ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Church Law ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Action ◽  
Common Vision

This study explores juridical aspects of the ecclesiology presented in the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission Paper,The Church: Towards a Common Vision(2013). It does so in the context of systems of church law, order and polity in eight church families worldwide: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Presbyterian and Baptist.Common Visiondoes not explicitly consider church law, order and polity or its role in ecumenism. However, many themes treated inCommon Visionsurface in church regulatory systems. This study examines how these instruments articulate the ecclesiology found inCommon Vision(which as such, de facto, offers juridical as well as theological principles), translate these into norms of conduct and, in turn, generate unity in common action across the church families. Juridical similarities indicate that the churches share common principles and that their existence suggests the category ‘Christian law’. While dogmas may divide the churches of global Christianity, the profound similarities between their norms of conduct reveal that the laws of the faithful, whatever their various denominational affiliations, link Christians through common forms of action. For this reason, comparative church law should have a greater profile in ecumenism today.1

scholarly journals Witnessing Together – Who, What and to Whom? The Concept of Witness in Together Towards Life and The Church: Towards a Common Vision

Ecclesiology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-282
Author(s):  
Ida Heikkilä
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
Triune God ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Vision

‘Witness’ belongs to the central vocabulary of contemporary ecumenism. Despite its ecumenically significant role the concept has not been defined in ecumenical dialogues, neither analysed in academic research. Already a rough mapping of dialogue documents shows that the concept is used in various ways and contexts but not in a coherent or conscious way. This article studies the meaning of ‘witness’ in two ecumenical documents issued by the World Council of Churches, ‘Together towards Life. Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes’ (2012) and ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ (2013). Both documents see witness as the characteristically Christian way of participating in the mission of the Triune God but give it different roles in the life of the church.

Visser ’t Hooft, 1900-1985

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurjen A. Zeilstra
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Age ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Ecumenical Movement ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Student Christian Movement ◽  
General Secretary ◽  
The Church ◽  
Formal Establishment

God’s diplomat, the pope of the ecumenical movement, but also an acerbic theologian and a difficult person: this is how journalists characterised Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft (1900-1985). He was one of the best-known Dutch theologians outside the Netherlands and he left his mark on the world church. Even at an early age, he made profound efforts in support of international ecumenical youth and student organisations (Dutch Student Christian Movement, YMCA and World Student Christian Federation). He led the World Council of Churches during its formative stages (from 1938), and after its formal establishment in 1948 became its first general secretary, serving until 1966. To Visser ’t Hooft, the unity of the church was both an article of faith and a pragmatic organisation of church influence in a disunited world.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document