Bonds of affection or ties to truth. . .

There was a time when the ecumenical endeavor seemed to have the attention of many, if not most, of Christian leaders and seemed poised to muster the energy to do what years of division have undone.  That, of course, has come and gone.  The ecumenical endeavor is no longer on the front burner of anyone and many presume that its aims have all been achieved -- if not by a common structure and single jurisdiction then by communion and fellowship long ago declared.  The only problem is that the ecumenical consensus was achieved not by struggling to find unity amid the doctrinal divisions that had existed or continue to exist.  Instead of truth, the focus shifted to mere affection.  We like you.  Let's work together.  Let's eat together.  Bonds of affection are as fickle as affection.  What was needed then and now is something more study -- a unity deep in the truth of God's Word, the creeds confessed, and the doctrines held.  That is not where the ecumenical movement is today.  Not by a long shot.

An example of this has already occurred in Anglicanism.  The once formidable Anglican Communion has been fractured to the point where those representing some 75% of Anglicans worldwide chose to boycott the enthronement of Sarah Mullally as it titular head, the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Who would have thought that the supreme example of a unity forged less with common creed and confession but in the area of affection, tradition, and "gentlemanly" discretion would be left with the tattered rags of church bodies and bishops who still hold to the idea that fellowship does not have to mean agreement on doctrine?  But that is where things have ended up.  The seeds of this division were always there but they have grown, matured, and borne the poison fruit of an Anglican Communion which is no longer a communion at all.  Yet what we have seen in Anglicanism is largely what has happened across the ecumenical landscape.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has struggled to find some group with whom they are not in communion -- except, of course, the Missouri Synod which actually holds to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.  Bonds of affection have led to seats at the table for Methodists, Reformed of various stripes, and a host of others who could not quite agree on what is believed, taught, and confessed but who do agree that affection means you are willing to overlook such thinks for the sake of the ecumenical endeavor.  They are certainly not alone.  Indeed, nearly all the old seven sisters of the American Mainline Protestant Churches have pursued this kind of ecumenical unity which is but merely the agreement to act civilly toward each other, not to address the other's sins, and make nice for the public image.  There is, for this reason, little need for the ecumenical conversations of old in which theologians actually looked at what they believed and what that meant.  It is probably for this reason you have need seen any such provisional texts of the progress of those conversations for some time.  Don't count on any in the future either.

Ecumenical endeavors have become the stuff of media friendships proclaimed with a click and with all the meaning and significance of those social media relationships.  Bonds of affection may sound nice but they lack little teeth or power to hold groups accountable or together.  And that is the real purpose of ecumenical conversations -- to hold each other accountable to what we said and say we still mean about who is God and what His Word speaks.  Indeed, the premise of the old ecumenical conversation was that if we really held each other accountable to be the best we could be through the norm of Scripture, it actually might mean that we had a confession in common.  Alas, that seems to be lost.  In its place is something that is as fragile as a house of cards and with even less meaning.  What a shame!