Runcie Sounds Tocsin Against Factionalism
Episcopal News Service. October 16, 1986 [86223]
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (DPS, Oct. 16) -- Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie warned that while ecumenists concentrate on theological differences separating the major church traditions, the most divisive controversies are the internal issues within each church body.
"The ecumenical movement is in serious danger of achieving peace where there is no longer a war," Runcie, spiritual leader of worldwide Anglican Communion, said, according to Religious News Service.
"The theological resolution of battles no one is now fighting would be a hollow victory," said Runcie, whose address at Yale's Battell Chapel was the Fifth Peter Ainslie Lecture on Christian Unity, sponsored by the ecumenical agency of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The series is named for a Disciples leader prominent in the beginnings of the modern ecumenical movement.
"At the same time," Runcie said, "there is no lack of controversy in the Church," including renewed debate in his own Church of England "between conservative and radical theologians," a debate "echoed in every major Christian tradition which has not drawn its boundaries to exclude pluralism by narrowly defined orthodoxy."
Debates over such issues as the Virgin Birth, the bodily resurrection, the ordination of women, "moral discipline in a free society" and liturgical reform are "symptoms rather than causes" of the divisions, he observed.
He said he saw little dialogue between opposing sides in various churches, but "only caricature, slogans and mutual anathemas."
Conservatives have more in common with traditionalists in other churches than with radicals in their own, he said, adding that "the liberal Roman Catholic will feel more at home with a liberal Protestant than with a conservative of his own tradition."
Urging a new brand of Christian ecumenism that seeks to unite the divided factions within churches, he declared, "We must hear what the conservative has to say about continuity, consistency, about the identify of a church community nurtured by faith... We must hear their criticism of a too-easy liberal identification of the Gospel with contemporary secular culture."
But at the same time, he added, each church needs to hear "what the radical has to tell us about the new beginnings of Pentecost and the Spirit of God doing fresh things. We must hear their critique of the evangelical movement's over-facile conservative identification of the faith with the expressions and formulations of past cultures."
Noting that the 20th century has been "rightly described as one of ecumenical advance," the Anglican leader said Christians should "take the precaution of looking ahead and preventing fresh schisms."
Another widening gap, said the Archbishop, is one seen especially within the World Council of Churches -- the division between "those who seek unity through common action and those who seek unity through common faith."
The debate is being raised profoundly, he observed, by the contextual theologies of Latin America, Africa and Asia that express "the day-to-day struggles of the peoples of those continents."
Calling for dialogue between "those whose base is classical theology and those who begin with the experience of their people and culture," he said the Church needs to see "that there is only one agenda here and not two. Concern for the poor and oppressed is part of the Gospel."
The English church leader said the Church's "bias to the poor may be difficult for some politicians in my country and yours. But it is they who have misunderstood the Gospel -- not the Church."
In any case, the Archbishop said, the work of "ecclesiastical ecumenism" is energy-absorbing and "may distract us from the wider ecumenism to which Christian unity should be a sign and pointer." The Christian unity movement's ultimate goal, he said, is to seek a "wider unity of every language, people and nation." For this to happen, he said, "the Church must become a sign that barriers can be broken down, that conflict can be overcome, that diversity can be contained."
Runcie also addressed reasons for what he called "Anglican inertia" on formal church unity negotiations. Moving toward Protestants, he said, is now seen by some as "moving away from Rome and the Orthodox. To say yes to Rome is seen as moving away from Protestantism."
Disagreeing with that view, Runcie argued that today, "to move toward the great Protestant traditions is not to move away from Rome, for Rome is already in discussion with them." In fact, he said, "the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity arguably conducts the widest range of ecumenical conversations among all the churches."
And, he continued, moving closer to Rome no longer means moving "away from the profoundest insights of the Reformation." He cautioned listeners against underestimating the significance of the Second Vatican Council for the life of all churches.
"Nor," he added, "must we be deceived by contemporary debates within the Roman Catholic Church into re-accepting the old Protestant myth that Rome never changes. The very fact of the sharpness of the contemporary Roman Catholic debate between radicals and conservatives is itself evidence of the continuing renewal within that church."