Christian Unity Workshop Planned For Seattle
Episcopal News Service. October 25, 1979 [79311]
SEATTLE -- Some 350 Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant ecumenical leaders are expected to take part in the 17th National Workshop on Christian Unity here March 10-13.
A Canadian Anglican who is the top elected officer of the World Council of Churches will be the featured speaker at the gathering of Christian unity advocates from throughout the United States.
Archbishop Edward W. Scott of Toronto, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada and moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council, will deliver the keynote address at a public worship service March 10 in the Roman Catholic cathedral. Other sessions will be in the Olympic Hotel.
For the first time Canadian Christians will be major participants in the workshop which had its origins in 1963 at a gathering of the National Council of Catholic Men.
The workshop will consider the theme, "Thy Kingdom Come," in search of the meaning of that phrase in Jesus' prayer in the context of the North American churches.
The Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical Officers will hold their annual meeting concurrently with the National Workshop and will provide leadership for some of the seminars.
There will be workshop seminars on the church and the handicapped, ecumenism in the early church, emerging models of ecumenism, local ecumenism in practice, the electronic church, and maintaining unity while dealing with controversial moral issues.
The Bible study leader for the workshop is Dr. James Martin, dean at the Vancouver (British Columbia) School of Theology and a member of the United Church of Canada.
Sister Agnes Cunningham, SSCM, professor of theology at Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelin, Ill., will be the closing speaker.
Much of the conference will be devoted to a sharing between participants on experiences, problems, hopes and successes in their various local efforts towards Christian unity, according to the Rev. Robert K. Welsh of Indianapolis, Ind., associate ecumenical officer of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and chairperson of the national planning committee.
The Rev. Loren E. Arnett, Seattle, executive of the Washington state association of churches, is the local arrangements chairperson. Arnett also is affiliated with the Disciples of Christ.
There will be briefings at the workshop on four particular action fronts in the ecumenical scene: the Asian experience, the mutual recognition of ministries through the Consultation on Church Union, the Church Women United experience, and unity on the Canadian scene.
Laity, pastors, ecumenical officers, theologians and church leaders take part in the National Workshop with the purpose of encouraging programs and action toward greater unity in the church.
Though local ecumenical agencies now host the event, its sponsors have been the national denominational ecumenical officers and the Roman Catholic Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.