Methodist Ecumenical News

The Last Post?

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000+01:00

Image by johnb/Derbys/uk via FlickrWith regret, this will be my last post for Methodist Ecumenical News. I leave employment with the Methodist Church today and there will not be a successor until January at the earliest. Even then there is no guarantee the blog will be continued.

Exploring Ecumenism

So, first of all thank you to everyone who has read posts on this blog. There are very few blogs about ecumenism, even if you search globally, and so this has been an interesting experiment. I have a personal blog, Exploring Ecumenism and you can follow my posts to EE on my Twitter account (@SissonsCJ). I haven't posted since early August but these days I tend to work at it in fits and starts - I promise to start posting again soon!

I intend to review EE, so that it covers some of the ground on this blog. EE is more theological and speculative, whilst Methodist Ecumenical News has covered events, often in a fairly clinical way. So, I hope to pick up some of the ground covered on this blog but I will mix with comments and reflections, more than I have on this blog.

Methodist Ecumenical News - a brief evaluation

So, what has Methodist Ecumenical News achieved? I have been encouraged by the followers on Twitter who now number over 120, with a few joining each week. Most of these are Methodists, which is encouraging. (The blog was always seen as an experiment and my hope is to see its rebirth as 'Ecumenical Ecumenical News'!) I expected establishing the blog to be slow because (broadly) ecumenists seem not to be much interested in blogging and bloggers don't seem to be terribly interested in ecumenism. (This may be an age related phenomenon.)

For example, Methodist Ecumenical News has received very few comments, despite the number of visitors (about 20 000 over its life and 63 views yesterday (and 50 today (Thursday) by 12.30pm). I was hoping for a community of readers but people read and don't comment (the same applies to EE, except for radical atheists on the topic of teapots). My other disappointment is the planned community of writers never happened. If a few other writers had joined in, the blog would not be closing. A number of people expressed interest but it seems the technology defeated them and I never found out what the exact problem was.

The perils of success

Ecumenism has been immensely successful over the last few decades. Formal conversations in particular have achieved a great deal in enabling the churches to recognise one another and to work together, sharing resources and, increasingly, worship. Paradoxically, ecumenism's success is its main barrier to progress. Here are three examples:

As churches move closer together, theologically and structurally, they often find progress becomes slower. The reasons for this are not necessarily theological. It is property, finance and most often organisational structures that form additional barriers, not accessible to analytical theologians. At first sight, organisational problems may seem to be ecclesiological, indeed they are, but the barriers commonly experienced are entrenched deep in people's understanding of their own tradition. A theological rationale to change ecclesiologies might be convincing on paper but in real life something more is needed. The problem is, for many people ecumenism means loss of identity, being subsumed into some larger church. We are in desperate need of models of church that allow the traditions to maintain their identity. Ken Howcroft's post yesterday hinted at one example where this may be happening.
Whilst there has been significant success in formal conversations, analytical theologians are are not good at communicating their findings with the wider church. Papers are often written in academic language and hidden away in journals. They cover issues that are not relevant to most people's experiences and knowledge and understanding of arcane dimensions of ecclesiology is assumed. We need a careful analysis of how this material is communicated. The Methodist Church experienced this problem a few years ago when, despite previous decisions taken by Conference in principle to support bishops, the decision about what sort of bishops was rejected outright. The problem is, a decision in principle might lead logically to a decision in practice but reality doesn't follow the laws of logic.
As the mainstream churches have moved closer together, we have witnessed, over the last 20 years, a large number of new churches appear, which do not participate in mainstream ecumenism. To them the historic churches probably seem to be a monolithic block of outdated Christians, made more threatening by their mutual closeness. The Evangelical Alliance has for a long time been an alternative to the formal ecumenical instruments and now it is arguable there is a third ecumenism of Christians who belong to informal churches and see themselves as Christians Together rather than Churches Together.

Exploring Ecumenism tries to identify how we can find a way out of the paradox that the progress we make actually creates barriers. We desperately need a new paradigm for ecumenism, rooted in local experience, shared globally. This is not a task for analytical theologians but for ordinary Christians everywhere. After 8 years amongst theologians, I return to real life and it is from that perspective I will blog in the future.

PS I have added a comment to the post about the Global Digital Library on Theology and Ecumenism about its launch and its web address.

A Message from Ken Howcroft in Rome

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000+01:00

Ponte Sant'Angelo Methodist Church

Ken Howcroft left the Connexional Team at the end of July and here is his first report from Rome, dated 28 September 2011.

So – here we are in Rome! One minute, I am AssistantSecretary of the Conference and Ecumenical Officer, then three weeks frantic “re-stationing”of our possessions and packing, then a trip to the annual Synod (the equivalentof our Conference or the General Synod of the Church of England) of theWaldensian-Methodist Church in Italy, then a weekend back in London cleaningand finishing the packing – and we arrived here at the start of September. Sincethen we have unpacked and begun to find our feet. We have now found a home forjust about everything. There was a time when I thought that the boxes movedfrom one part of the apartment to another overnight when we were asleep but wegradually sorted them all out. The books are on the shelves, but not necessarilyin the right order yet. That makes finding things a slow process, but it alsomeans that I keep coming across things that I was not looking for but whichsuddenly look interesting……

I am here to be the minister for (I still think “for”is more in line with our theology of stationing and ministry than “of”!) thePonte Sant’Angelo Methodist Church in Rome. It is an English-language MethodistChurch just across the river Tiber from the Vatican, and therefore claiming tobe the Pope’s nearest (geographically?) Protestant neighbour. We have afascinating and vibrant congregation from all over the world, includingsizeable groups from West Africa and the Philippines. How to provide a home andsupport for groups of people from Methodist and other Churches around the worldand help them to retain their own roots but also integrate into the ItalianChurch is a live issue here as much as it is in London and other parts of theBritish Connexion!

Methodist missions began in Italy 150 years ago at thetime of the Risorgimento and the Unification of Italy. The PSA Church buildingwas originally owned by the Friars of St. Celsus, but was bought by the ItalianFree Church and dedicated as a protestant place of worship by AlessandroGavazzi, Garibaldi’s protestant chaplain, on 18th March 1877. At that time thebuilding housed not only the worship sanctuary, but also a theological college, junior andinfant schools and a library. Some of those particular activities have sinceceased but the commitment to study and learning remains. I hope to contributethings both in the local church and ecumenically whilst I am here.

Technically, I have been given permission to serveabroad by the British Conference, which has seconded me to serve the MethodistChurch in Italy (the Opere per le Chiese Evangeliche Metodiste in Italia[OPCEMI]) which is part of a united Waldensian-Methodist Church. The ItalianChurch has appointed me to serve in the district and circuit that includesRome, and to have pastoral charge here at PSA.

Ponte Sant'Angelo Methodist Church, close up of door.

The Methodist Churches in Britain and in Italy, withencouragement from other Methodists in Europe and other parts of the world, havealso asked me, as the other part of my role here, to build on the excellentwork of my predecessors, most notably and recently Trevor Hoggard, and offermyself as a resource to help Methodists from round the world in their relatingto the Vatican as well as fulfilling other ecumenical roles. To this end I havebeen in contact with Prof. Robert Gribben who is responsible for ecumenicalmatters under the aegis of the World Methodist Council; the International Anglican Centre in Rome; and the Roman Catholic English College. I have alsohad conversations with the Ambassador of the Australian Government to the HolySee, including sharing concerns about the situation of the Methodist Church in Fiji.

The ecumenical landscape is different here. Methodistsand, to a greater extent (because their history is longer) Waldensians have asense of being minorities excluded and at times persecuted by the RomanCatholic Church. The PSA church is built at one end of the bridge that leads toand from the Castel Sant’Angelo, the fortress that protected the Vatican City. The Church is built in part of what in earliercenturies was a public square in which executions took place. Later in Octobera plaque is to be put on the side of the Church in memory of some Reformers whowere executed here. The local congregation is a little anxious about thisdamaging relationships with Roman Catholics. It will be interesting to see if,as has happened to some extent in some parts of the world, we can start to movethings to a point where the descendants of all sides in ancient disputes can beginto acknowledge and respect each other’s martyrs.

There are things to learn here, too. One of theecumenical challenges in the British situation is how to develop structuresthat enable there to be visible communion that enrich and do not destroy theidentity of the partners concerned. I have been intrigued to discover that the Methodist Church in Italy seems to have travelleda long way down this road. The Methodists and Waldensians constitute a unitedchurch, and have been for many years. But they seem to keep their separateidentities to a great extent. In terms of oversight, and particularly ofgovernance, there is a committee that deals with OPCEMI affairs. But it reportsto the annual Synod of the united church in which Waldensians and Methodiststogether make decisions. So the Methodists have been able to share governance andoversight in those structures without losing a sense of identity. I need to learn more about the polity but sofar as I can tell (and I may be proved wrong when I get to know things better)this has come about pragmatically (how very Methodist!) and I shall beinterested to discover what explicit theological reflection there has been aboutit. But they may be on to something of wider application!

Global Christian Forum Meets Next Week

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000+01:00

"The Novotel Hotel and Convention Center in Manado,

on the island of Sulawesi, will host the second

global gathering of the Global Christian Forum".

It is almost a year since Methodist Ecumenical News drew attention to next week's meeting of the Global Christian Forum. So, it is time to review the progress of the planning for the meeting.

The event (4 - 7 October 2011) will be held at the Novotel Hotel and Convention Center in Manado, the capital of the Province of North Sulawesi. Manado is situated at the far north-eastern tip of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Gathering around the central theme of Life Together in Jesus Christ, Empowered by the Holy Spirit, some three hundred church leaders and representatives from every continent have been invited to attend.

The makeup of the conference comprises a 50-50 split between what could be conveniently called 'Evangelical' and 'Traditional' churches all chosen using a set of principles to ensure balance in representing the variety and diversity of world Christianity.

Two plenary sessions will work directly under the main theme, and out of it, a third plenary will, intentionally, be Listening to What the Spirit is Saying to the Churches.

As well as discussing changing trends, participants will hear first hand of the experiences of the churches from across the world and will seek discern the further vision for the Global Christian Forum.

The invitations include representation from Christian World Communions, Ecumenical organizations, Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic organizations and churches, Orthodox Patriarchates, the Catholic Church, Regional Councils, Conferences, Alliances or Associations, and Churches, covering all geographic areas and all traditions, mega churches and migrant churches.

Participants will include both women and men, and will cover a range of age groups from young people to more experienced church leaders. The four national church bodies in Indonesia are supportive of the meeting in their country. The Communion of Churches – the Pentecostal Churches Fellowship – the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches and Institutions – and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, have all warmly welcomed the Global Christian Forum to hold its second gathering in their nation and have constituted a joint national organizing committee.

For more information, it is worth looking at the Forum website, where you will find a programme and an explanation of what they hope to achieve and how. Doubtless more material will appear after the Forum has met. One document in particular is worth a look, Introduction to Second Global Gathering, which offers a brief recap of the history of the Forum and then goes on to explain the purpose of the gathering, who will be there and how the programme is intended to work.

World Methodist Conference 2011

2011-09-27T08:00:00.000+01:00

I thought it might be interesting today to focus on the World Methodist Council and the 2011 World Methodist Conference at the beginning of August.

One of the great advantages of the internet is that so much information is available to us, which years ago might have been difficult to access. But this does depend on the quality of websites and sadly the World Methodist Council website is a disappointment. It desperately needs to be brought up to date and like the British Methodist Church (soon to be improved) has a single column format that restricts any creative use of space. But it is dull in terms of content as well as layout. The World Methodist Council page on the British Methodist Church website, which provides a basic introduction, and Wikipedia's page do not really supply more information.

Still, it's worth visiting the main site and if you hunt around you will get an impression of the range of its activities. It is particularly interesting to look at the member churches. It might seem odd on a blog committed to ecumenism to look at something entirely Methodist but what the WMC does is to remind us that all of our traditions are alliances of churches. There is a family of Methodist Churches around the world. They are autonomous churches that choose to acknowledge their relationship from a tradition that began with the Wesleys.

The use of new media was much more in evidence at the World Methodist Conference, which took place in early August, following a meeting of the World Methodist Council. (The latter saw the launch of the papers about Methodist Roman Catholic relations, I featured yesterday.) The conference papers are worth a read and give a better overview of the event than anything I can write here.

Methodist Ecumenical News

The Last Post?

Related articles

A Message from Ken Howcroft in Rome

Related articles

Global Christian Forum Meets Next Week

World Methodist Conference 2011

Related articles