Ecumenism may be dead. . .

As we all know the Lutherans who united in 1988 have since divided and the number of those who bled off the church body outnumber those who are now counted by the ELCA or the two bodies made up of those who left.  The United Methodists are now working on disuniting -- just a matter of who gets the assets and how to deal with the kids.  The Reformed are also dividing up the spoils and set to go their own way.  As we all know the Anglicans are fighting more over real estate than doctrine or faith both in the remnant of the Episcopal Church and the ACNA.  Now the Germans have come up with Der Synodal Weg as a means of making Rome more local and less international -- just under a hundred bishops have written a fraternal letter begging to disagree.

Some may continue to harbor hopes and dreams of a vast ecumenical enterprise but most of us see that the dream is dead -- long live the dream.  It was surely flawed from the get go but what really killed it was the lack of doctrine.  Without a strong consensus on what is believed in a specific and positive sense, there is little urgency to get together or stay together.  Replacing dogma with morality and tilting that toward the liberal or progressive side only muddied the water even more -- forcing those who wanted to swim out of the pool.  It is hard to be sad about it all and I fear that the ecumenical movement may have inadvertantly or overtly contributed toward the fracture of Christianity that is the new normal.

Ecumenism was never our job.  Faithfulness was.  As I have often opined, the job of the Lutheran is to be the best Lutheran you can be, the Methodist to be the best Methodist, the best Roman Catholic to be the best Roman Catholic....  Because if what we say is true, that means reflecting in doctrine believed, in faith confessed, and in practice lived the fullest and most faithful witness to the Scriptures possible.  Every church body says they listen to Scripture and reflect its voice as best they can.  But if we did, there would be a whole lot more unity and a whole lot less division.  So it helps no one, certainly not Christ, to sit down and negotiate away the faith as if a little give and take here and there can effect what the Holy Spirit cannot.  What fools we are!

The most important unity is one we already have.  Born of baptismal water, we are adopted not into many but one family.  We are born anew by the one Spirit.  One Lord, one faith, one baptism -- I think I read that somewhere.  It may not be reflected in an organizational unity that has a common address for our joint headquarters building but it counts for more than that.  It is this divinely appointed unity that unites not simply the diverse who live now but the voices of the past who echo in our hearts as we would echo into the ear of those yet to come.  The rest of the unity that we should have is a unity we should work for but not as a compromise.  Rather it is the fruit of a constant and urgent effort to hearken to the voice of God's Word and to reflect that Word as fully as is possible in the present, so as to stand in the long line of witnesses before us and to pass on as faithfully as possible what was delivered to us.  Perhaps the best the negotiation table can do is to force us to remember who we are and to reflect that identity by finding ourselves in God's Word.  If it does that, all well and good.  But we are holding out a false hope that people will find a perfect compromise that enables the fractures to melt into a semblance of unity.

I certainly do not regret the passing of the once vibrant but essentially flawed ecumenical vision.  I do not think this justifies ignoring those with whom we share a common confession or discussions with those with whom we do not.  But our primary enterprise was and always will be to proclaim the Gospel, in season and out, that those who hear may believe and believing may have eternal life in Christ.