Ecumenical theology Quotes

“Beyond the family or particular Christian tradition, how much effort do we make to consider what the Mennonites or the Episcopalians, the Baptists or the Pentecostals, the Methodists or the Presbyterians have to say to the rest of us out of their DIFFERENCES, as well as out of the affirmation in common with other Christians? As I suggested earlier, our patterns of ecumenicity tend to bracket out our differences rather than to celebrate and capitalize upon them. Finding common ground has been the necessary first step in ecumenical relations and activity. But the next step is to acknowledge and enjoy what God has done elsewhere in the Body of Christ. And if at the congregational level we are willing to say, 'I can't do everything myself, for I am an ear: I must consult with a hand or an eye on this matter,' I suggest that we do the same among whole traditions. If we do not regularly and programmatically consult with each other, we are tacitly claiming that we have no need of each other, and that all the truth, beauty, and goodness we need has been vouchsafed to us by God already. Not only is such an attitude problematic in terms of our flourishing, as I have asserted, but in this context now we must recognize how useless a picture this presents to the rest of society. Baptists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics failing to celebrate diversity provide no positive examples to societies trying to understand how to celebrate diversity on larger scales.”

“My own understanding is similar to that of scholar of religion and pastor Howard Thurman. I find a profound teaching in Thurman's saying that "what is true in any religion is in the religion because it is true; it is not true because it is in the religion." Thurman's saying is true for Christian theology. If there is truth in a theology, then it is present simply because it is true, not because it is in the theology. Whether or not we can find truth in a school of thought or particular theological construction is most important, not the school of thought or particular theological construction. Therefore, I find events of truth to draw on from a diversity of theological writings, rather than locate my work in a particular school of thought. The truth we Christians seek, beyond all our words and all of our labels, is found through unity in diversity. It is the common ground we all long for. No one theology alone is capable of revealing this common ground. We require a diversity taken together, each with its distinctive gifts. Together, these various insights into Christian truth correct and inform one another. This is the gift of ecumenism.”

“My recommendation instead, however, is that we do not surrender questions of value, whether absolute matters of truth, goodness, and beauty or relative judgment of more or less truth, goodness, and beauty. With those questions to the fore, in fact, we can interrogate various other traditions and truly learn something that can improve our own. Perhaps the Presbyterians really do know more than we do about due process in church government. Perhaps the Orthodox really do know some things we do not about iconography. Perhaps the Mennonites really can teach us the meaning of 'enough.' Perhaps the Pentecostals can help liberate us from dull and disembodied worship. Baptists who have learned to improve their procedures from Presbyterians, their art from the Orthodox, their finances from the Mennonites, and their worship from the Pentecostals do not therefore become worse Baptists but better ones. And so around the ecumenical circle, no?”

“Faith is not a meritorious cause of election, but it is constantly attested as the sole condition of salvation. Faith merely receives the merit of atoning grace, instead of asserting its own merit. God places the life-death option before each person, requiring each to choose. The ekletos are those who by grace freely believe. God does not compel or necessitate their choosing. Even after the initial choice of faith is made, they may grieve and quench the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).Faith is the condition under which God primordially wills the reception of salvation by all. “He chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe; lest we should say that we first chose Him” (Augustine). Faith receives the electing love of God not as if it had already become efficacious without faith, but aware that God’s prescience foreknows faith like all else.In accord with ancient ecumenical consent, predestination was carefully defined in centrist Protestant orthodoxy as:'The eternal, divine decree, by which God, from His immense mercy, determined to give His Son as Mediator, and through universal preaching , to offer Him for reception to all men who from eternity He foresaw would fall into sin; also through the Word and Sacraments to confer faith upon all who would not resist; to justify all believers, and besides to renew those using the means of grace; to preserve faith in them until the end of life, and in a word, to save those believing to the end' (Melanchthon).”

“Considering things in the ecumenical measure, we are the microbes of the Universe.”

“He saw the Constitution as the vehicle to keep ecumenical passions in check.”

“To take a side against Rushdie, or to be neutral and evasive about him in the name of some vaguely sensitive ecumenical conscience, is to stand against those who try to incubate a Reformation in the Muslim world.”

“Every Christmas now for years, I have found myself wondering about the point of the celebration. As the holiday has become more ecumenical and secular, it has lost much of the magic that I remember so fondly from childhood.”

“I only object when any one particular group...gets a stranglehold on American criticism and squeezes out anybody who doesn't conform to its own standards....The ax falls, ecumenically, on the head of anybody...who doesn't share this group's parochial preoccupations.”

“It’s time that Christianity should be redefined by the world based upon the original teachings of Jesus, instead of the Old and New Testaments which have been interpreted, reinterpreted and distorted by all the Ecumenical Councils, i.e. the Church Councils.”