A Crucial Unity
The Grim Realities of Ecumenism Today
by Raymond J. Keating
When I approached the editor of this magazine about covering a conference on ecumenism, he warned that Christian unity was “one of those subjects that sends even the most articulate to Cliches ’R Us.” Good point, I thought, having been guilty of shopping there on occasion.
So, as I set off in mid-September for Princeton, New Jersey, for a conference titled “In One Body Through the Cross: The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity—An Ecumenical Conference on the Problems and Prospects Facing Church Unity,” my radar was up for any Pollyanna-like talk that glossed over today’s formidable obstacles that not only stand in the way of broader Christian unity, but to unity within various Christian denominations.
Sponsored by the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and held at the Center for Theological Inquiry, the conference built on The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity, which was hammered out over some three years and signed by sixteen theologians and scholars. That declaration was published in book form by Eerdmans in 2003 as In One Body Through the Cross.
Among the signers were the Methodist theologians William Abraham and Geoffrey Wainwright; Catholic theologians Brian Daley and R. R. Reno; an Orthodox theologian, John R. Erickson; one Episcopalian, J. Robert Wright; and several Lutherans, including George Lindbeck.
Several of the signers spoke at the conference, including Vigen Guroian, an Orthodox theologian and professor of theology and ethics at Loyola College; Susan Wood, a Roman Catholic and professor of theology at Marquette University; and David Yeago, professor of systematic theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary. The speakers offered their views on the state of the ecumenical movement, and therefore, the opportunities and obstacles facing the Princeton Proposal.
Grim Realities
As it turned out, the conference was not a case of ecumenical cheerleading. Instead, it was firmly rooted in the grim realities of ecumenism, but with obvious trust in the redemptive and transforming power of Jesus Christ, and emphasizing the necessary role of Christian suffering in the effort for greater unity.
The Lutheran theologian Robert W. Jenson, the outgoing assistant director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, noted in his opening remarks that the theologians who worked on the Princeton Proposal insisted that the title include “through the Cross.” Jenson noted that unity would “require churches to suffer” the “loss of things they rightly value.” He called it “penitential.”
That idea echoed the actual document In One Body Through the Cross, which declared: “Significant aspects of our traditions must be rethought if they are truly to witness to the one apostolic faith rather than to our divisions. . . . The disciplines of unity are penitential. As St. Paul teaches, for the sake of unity we must be willing to suspend gospel freedom and conform to the limitations of the weak.”
Raymond J. Keating is a columnist for Newsday on Long Island, and also writes a weekly ?On the Church and Society? column for Orthodoxy Today. An economist, he has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is a member of Christ Lutheran Church (Lutheran Church?Missouri Synod) in East Moriches, New York.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on ecumenism from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Labels & the Ecumenism of Discipleship by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
27.5—Sept/Oct 2014
on Growing Vegetables as a Primer in Moral Philosophy by Rachel Lu
33.1—January/February 2020
on a Saint's Charism That Cures Toxic Perfectionism by Colleen Carroll Campbell
31.6—November/December 2018
on Futility & the Open Door to Deliverance by Patrick Henry Reardon
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
