As we mark the beginning of the Octave of Christian Unity, I thought I would confess my love/hate relationship with ecumenism.

On one hand, I love the ecumenism in The Alpha Course that churches as diverse as our own Anglican Catholic cathedral in Ottawa and my former Baptist  church can use as a tool for evangelism, focusing on essential doctrines of the Christian faith.

I love the ecumenism of Augustine College, a one-year college founded more than ten years ago by a group of Christian professors from the University of Ottawa and other area institutions.  These professors from Catholic, Anglican, Reformed and other traditions had started meeting in an informal breakfast seminar, reading encylicals, or Cardinal Newman's Grammar of Assent.  They then went on to form this college which offers a one-year grounding in the foundations of western civilization.  The school is committed to academic excellence AND living in Christian community–a beautiful feat considering the range of opinion you might find on the sacraments, for example.   What is shared, however, is a love for the Word of God.  And by this I do not mean Bible-olatry, but a love of the Person of God the Son, Jesus Christ.  Augustine College has a high proportion of TAC profs and staff, BTW, including its president John Patrick, its chaplain Fr. Doug Hayman and its dean Dr. Edward Tingley, but I digress.

I'm starting to feel a bit like the TAC version of Bill Clinton, because it all depends on what you call essential doctrines and what you mean as you parse each word of the ancient creeds.

We know that the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that issues such as women in the priesthood fall into that non-essential category as I would imagine also his view that eventually we will all come to see his prophetic view of divine filiation including those with a same-sex orientation.

But as New Testament Scholar Edith Humphrey warned an Anglican Essentials meeting in Ottawa several years ago, the whole same-sex issue is really the tip of an iceberg of a much deeper problem concerning the authority of Scripture and the Creation/Fall/Redemption Gospel vs. a new gospel of inclusivity and welcome.  This gospel does not like the word "sin" or "sinners" but takes a more therapeutic approach to the whole problem of self-esteem and the fact that we do not love ourselves enough to appreciate "the other" or whatever else is substituting for the literal Incarnation, death on the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here we come to the ecumenism I hate.  This is a watered-down, lowest common denominator type of ecumenism that leads to such things as the World Council of Churches call for churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times for climate justice while the Copenhagen talks were going on. Hey, I'm all for a clean environment and for ensuring that the poor of this world do not suffer from our rapaciousness.   But I am leery of huge, statist, quasi-utopian schemes that would just serve to make everyone poor and remove the accountability structures of free societies to make sure everyone abides by the rule of law.

On an institutional level, especially here in Canada, there is a huge commitment in the Church to a polite, lowest common denominator ecumenism that focuses around what churches can do together in the social justice arena.  The agreed on statements begin to sound like the policies of the statist and socialist New Democratic Party.   We all care about the poor, right?  We should.  But we end up with the kind of ideological split of the so-called "right" focusing on the right to life as fundamental, and the so-called "left" focusing on women's rights and human rights (again it depends on what the meaning of human rights is).

But I remain committed to an ecumenism that is focused on the simplicity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In November, we held an ecumenical event at our little cathedral by inviting a charismatic pastor who is one of the most credible charismatics I have ever met who operates in supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Interestingly, it was Penn Clark's teachings about spiritual headship and covering that prepared me to receive teachings about Apostolic Succession.  While Penn may have a very different take on the Eucharist and on the priesthood than we have at the TAC,  it is amazing and beautiful what the Holy Spirit can do with a man who loves Jesus Christ, longs to do His will, and pores and prays over Scripture.

It makes me sad that  so much of the Catholic Church is so worried about the encroachment of Pentecostal "sects" in places like Africa and Latin America.  Here in Canada, you almost never see ecumenical events that include charismatics and Catholics (i.e. those outside the Church) except the National Prayer Breakfast and the March for Life.

Yes… none of us like the "name it and claim it" heresies that prey on the credulous, but there is a lot in the charismatic world that has a fervency and single-minded focus on loving Jesus and living by the Spirit that is inspiring. And often I see the family resemblence in the love of Christ shining in their faces.

The areas where the Catholic Church is green here in Canada are often those which have re-incorporated elements of God's grace that were growing wild in  evangelical or charismatic circles.

Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) is an amazing ministry to evanglize Catholic youth that is patterned after Campus Crusade for Christ.

The Companions of the Cross is a relatively new order of priests founded by Fr. Bob Bedard who was heavily influenced by the charismatic renewal of the 1970s and 80s.

The Bible-believing charismatics and evangelicals often see the Catholic Church as syncretistic.  And alas, in some countries, there can be problems with that.  They also see the kind of mainstream watering down of the faith to the gospel of welcome or laced with Marxist Liberation theology.

I sure hope that we in the Anglican ordiniariates will be alive in Christ in the fullest possible sense.  It is too easy to go through the motions and become formalistic or to love our beautiful liturgy and Prayer Book language and lose sight of our living Lord and High Priest Jesus.

May that be the focus of our ecumenism.  This is how the Holy Spirit will bring us to unity in one, visible, sacramental Church.

Related posts:

1. The Tired Ecumenism of the Liberals
2. Soloviev and Ecumenism