Interview with Dr. Peter Day about Recently Released Report of Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations
Diocesan Press Service. June 15, 1973 [73155]
NEW YORK, N. Y. -- In spite of "certain apparent retreats on the ecumenical front" during the past few years, a recently released report to the Episcopal Church's General Convention says there have been' "some phenomenal advances in a Christian response to the ecumenical imperative."
The report, prepared by the Episcopal Church's Joint Commission on Ecumenical Relations (JCER) will be submitted to the Church's triennial General Convention in Louisville, Ky., this fall.
Dr. Peter Day, the Executive Council's Ecumenical Officer and staff officer of JCER, in commenting on the report, said, "I think there are retreats, but they are not retreats of the ecumenical movement as a whole. We had assumed that the ecumenical issue was one of church government whereas actually it's an issue of church life."
A recurring theme throughout the report, he pointed out, is "the expansion of the ecumenical movement into the local life of the church in diocese and parish. "
The report consists of a summary of the work of JCER since the General Convention in 1970 and several resolutions concerning the Episcopal Church's continued participation in various aspects of the ecumenical movement.
The Episcopal Church has continued its participation in three major bi-lateral dialogues --- Orthodox-Anglican Dialogue, Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, and Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogue. These have taken place on both national and international levels.
Dr. Day said that discussions with the Orthodox is of special significance "because Orthodoxy is in so many ways a living example of the ancient church's life to which Episcopalians frequently appeal in thinking what church life should be like."
However, he said, there has been "more positive movement" in the Episcopal Church's relations with the Roman Catholic Church. He said that while the "Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine" -- adopted by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission in 1971 -- has been well received by both churches, there is in some quarters " a sense of anxiety, a sense of having lost touch with certain familiar terminology," such as the old arguments between Anglicans and Roman Catholics about transubstantiation.
What now has to be done, he said, is "to find a new common language to express what we have been expressing in different theological languages. We have a very strong agreement on the fundamental dynamics of the Eucharist."
Dr. Day said that definite progress is being made in Anglican-Roman Catholic relationships. "We hope to arrive at an agreement permitting full communion, " he said, even though there are differences that must be resolved. One hurdle, he said, "is whether Roman Catholics can recognize the validity of Anglican orders in a way which doesn't seem to be saying that a bad judgment was made in the past.
"And, of course," he added, "we have the problem of defining a relationship with the Bishop of Rome which to Roman Catholics does not damage papal authority. This requires immense good will on both sides."
He said, "There is a very real possibility that we may arrive at full communion, and we might do it in one country before it can be done in every country of the world. It's got to start somewhere, without, of course, breaking our fellowship with the Anglican Church throughout the world. "
ARC intends to complete its agenda by 1976, but that is only the starting point for discussion at the level of Church authority.
Dr. Day said that the plan of Union of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) has recently been a "casualty of the concept of church government as being the arena in which answers to unity questions are to be found. "
The JCER report, he said, points out that the 1973 Plenary of the Consultation recognized that "organizational structures for a united church" will have to "wait to be revealed and developed out of the experience of living and working together."
"We have found, " he said, "that the idea of governmental union is not for these times in this country. Here and now it is not the likely way of increasing unity among American Christians."
He added, "COCU now is thinking rather of the life of local church people where they are and what can be done to express our God-given unity more fully in the present situation."
"Some people in the Episcopal Church are definitely opposed to COCU, " Dr. Day said, because they feel that the Reformed Protestant churches in COCU are not what they want to unite with. Frequently, the same people have a deep respect for Lutheranism, but when it comes to what is sometimes called the Liberal Protestant tradition, many of our clergy have left that tradition because they were dissatisfied with it and have come into the Episcopal Church.
However, he said that he feels "that the Church as a whole -- and I believe the Convention as a whole -- will recognize that we still hold by the Prayer Book statement that 'the Church is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head and all baptized people are the members,' and feel that it's just as important to seek unity with those who have ways that are very different from ours as those whose ways are more compatible. "
He said that he believes "there are many, a majority undoubtedly, who feel that to unite in church government with these churches is something not seriously to be contemplated. And once they understand that this is not what is being proposed, I think they will be quite willing to explore the possibilities of the kinds of relationship that the COCU plenary has recommended. "
Dr. Day said that the report of the first series of Lutheran-Episcopal Dialogues has recently been issued. and that the JCER is recommending that the Convention authorize a second series between the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran Council in the U. S. A. on the subject, "What is the Gospel,?"
"I'm rather glad, " he said, "that we have that subject because Episcopalians don't very often ask themselves what the gospel is."
Dr. Day said that he feels that "the heart of our present situation is that in all our relationships -- with the Roman Catholics, and with the Orthodox with the churches in the Consultation on Church Union, with the Lutherans -- wive face the fact that things are happening locally that in some ways are ahead of what's being proposed by the Commission. "
Because of this, he said, the JCER is requesting the House of Bishops at its interim meeting in 1974 "to set aside a substantial period of time," to consider matters relating to the "expansion of the ecumenical movement into the local life of the church in diocese and parish. "
He said that the JCER is referring to the House of Bishops several appropriate "questions that need to be answered in three dimensions -- the theological, the canonical and the pastoral -- and at the end of that request, we express the hope that the bishops can give a faithful (that's theological), orderly (that's canonical), and loving (that's pastoral) response to these questions."
According to the Rules of Order of the House, he said, provision is made for dealing with a subject of this kind in the Bishops in Council, which "as an assemblage of Catholic Bishops, considering and acting up on matters of duty or responsibility resting on them as a portion of the universal Episcopate, may be convened at any time. . . ."
Dr. Day said that he thinks "the restructuring of the National Council of Churches will be an asset in the ecumenical movement," though "somehow the Governing Board itself has to understand that the program life of the NCC is more autonomous than the constitution indicates."
Of the World Council of Churches' 1972 Bangkok conference on Salvation Today, Dr. Day said, "I think that the search for an altogether perfect society is a fruitless one in a world of sinful human beings, but Christians have a duty to seek ways of ordering their world that conform more nearly to the pattern of the Kingdom of God. How to do this is something we are going to argue about for a good many years, and perhaps that alone makes the conference worthwhile."
In the Wider Episcopal Fellowship, he said, the JCER report recommends that "the Episcopal Church invite the Church of North India, the Church of Pakistan, and the Church of Bangladesh to enter into full communion with it on the principles of the 1931 Bonn Concordat," noting that "the Church of England has by overwhelming majority accepted them as sister churches. We feel, he said, "that we should do the same."
Dr. Day said that the JCER "has been given the responsibility by General Convention to try to foster Jewish-Episcopal relations and we ran into the problem that the particular competence of the Commission to discuss theological issues between the two groups was not by an means the only thing we had to talk about with our Jewish brethren."
After consulting with the Presiding Bishop and the president of the House of Deputies, he said, "we agreed that there should be an advisory committee to the Presiding Bishop on Christian-Jewish relations and it would serve principally as a switchboard to call the attention of Episcopal Church agencies and units to things they ought to do or ought to stop doing in their relations with Jews and to give representatives of the two communities guidance as to whom they should talk about particular problems." This committee hopes to begin its work in the fall.
Dr. Day said that an important part of the JCER report is the section on "the strategic role of our diocesan ecumenical officers who have a very strong commitment to promoting ecumenism in their dioceses." With the increasing emphasis in ecumenical discussions on local and regional groups working and worshiping together, he said, "I look forward to a strengthening of this structure by developing communication from one diocese to the next."
Dr. Day said that he feels that the recommended budget for the Ecumenical Office for 1974, $225, 000. 00, is not adequate. "I think the budgetary situation is really very bad. It's understandable when you realize how much we've had to cut our own staff and many of our programs in the past triennium. It's easy to see there isn't enough money to go around.
"At the same time, " he said, "I feel there's a lack of realism in our commitment to these bodies such as the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches. We ought to do our fair share."
"We're spending something like 1.4 percent of the church's budget on these major ecumenical agencies in 1973 and proposing that next year we drop to 1.3 percent -- about half of our fair share. That doesn't seem right."
By a vote of 453 to 259, the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church has voted to re-enter the Consultation on Church Union. This reverses a 1972 decision to withdraw even though COCU had originally grown out of a suggestion of Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, at that time stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church. Displeasure with sections of the COCU Plan dealing with structure and polity was one reason for that withdrawal.
The remaining eight denominations participating in COCU had voted meanwhile to change the approach to structural unity, now emphasizing a gradual development of closer working relationships on local and regional levels.
"It's a joyous moment," commented Dr. Paul A. Crow, Jr., COCU's general secretary, "not only for COCU but for the whole ecumenical movement. A church with a great tradition now brings its gifts back to the Church union process."
In addition to the United Presbyterian, Churches in COCU are the African Methodist Episcopal; African Methodist Episcopal Zion; Christian Methodist Episcopal; Christian (Disciples of Christ); Episcopal; United Methodist; Presbyterian U. S. (Southern); and the United Church of Christ.