Getting nowhere?

Oxley, Simon

The Reverend Dr Simon Oxley has recently been awarded a Ph.D. for his thesis 'The World Council of Churches and 'Ecumenical Consciousness': How the Constitutional Responsibility of Fostering Ecumenical Consciousness' Has Been Reflected in the World Council of Churches' Educational and Formational Activities from 1948 to 2000". He is a former staff member of the WCC and lives in the United Kingdom.

If I were looking for a one-sentence summary of my research into "the World Council of Churches and ecumenical consciousness", it might not come from my own writing but from that of Elisabeth Raiser: "The ecumenical movement gets nowhere unless and until ordinary church people are involved in it, embrace it and carry the torch or ecumenism". (1) The more I have read, the more I have reflected, the more I am convinced that the ecumenical movement and its global instrument, the World Council of Churches (WCC), must be as concerned with engaging church people as it is engaged with church leaders and church structures. Otherwise, it will get nowhere.

A telling word from the pages of an early issue of this journal struck me as I pursued my research. It came from a Church of England bishop, Oliver Tomkins, who was a prominent voice in Faith and Order. Reflecting on the young WCC, he suggested that its calling was to die as a council of denominations:

 By entering into this relationship with each other we have already
 willed the death of our denominations.... The essence of
 denominationalism is to suppose the sufficiency of denominations;
 the essence of our covenant with each other is to deny that our
 denominations are enough. The peril of the World Council is that it
 might encourage the permanency of the units upon which it rests. (2)

The article was the text of Tomkins' address to the Third World Conference on Faith and Order Conference in Lund in 1952. He also suggested that simply continuing to explain our understanding of divisive issues, such as baptism or bishops, to one another would not have taken us any further: "If we do, we shall be in danger of cataloguing dead issues instead of wrestling with living truth, and of giving the finality of a goal to that which was meant to be the starting-point for fresh understanding". (3)

Merely learning about our differences was not liberative but ran the danger of entrenching the divisions between us. This point resonates with the fear of Visser 't Hooft, expressed at the same conference: that the churches' involvement in the organized ecumenical movement was to avoid having to unite rather than moving toward unity. He made the point that many saw the relationship of the churches "as an end rather than as a beginning, as a solution of the problem of unity rather than as a first step on the road to unity. The danger is that ... the World Council can thus become a narcotic rather than a stimulant." (4)

Earlier, Visser 't Hooft had expressed the aspiration that the WCC should promote not just awareness of its own activities but "a new dynamic vision of the Church" (5). These references illustrate the recognition of two significant issues--that the ecumenical enterprise was as much about discovering the new as it was about the reconciling of old differences and the danger that the institutionalization of ecumenism in the formation of the WCC might lead to division being legitimated in the organizational structure. More significantly, the references point to a bold ecumenical vision of a renewed, transformed Christianity.

Those readers in the early 1950s who feared for their denominations need not have worried. Twenty-first-century Christianity is still divided into denominations and the WCC is still a council of separated churches. Clay Shirkey, a prominent commentator on the social effects of internet technologies, has argued that institutions will tend to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. (6) Institutions take on a life of their own; it is in their interests to preserve their resources, power and prestige. For this reason, they are unlikely to be agents of undermining their very reason for being. This, of course, is as true of the churches as institutions as it is of the WCC. Phrases that have become popular, such as "unity in reconciled diversity", (7) can be understood as a better mutual understanding that leaves everyone more or less as they are, rather than being radically changed, as implied by the early vision.

Perhaps it was to counter such tendencies that the founders of the WCC included in its original constitution, adopted in Amsterdam in 1948, the requirement "to promote the growth of ecumenical consciousness in the members of all Churches". (8) This is another pointer to a bold ecumenical vision whereby everyone, not just church leaders or ecumenical functionaries, was engaged. The requirement did not absolve the churches from their responsibility to develop the ecumenical awareness, commitment and practice of their members. However, it did give the WCC a licence and responsibility to engage with the members of its member churches with that purpose. This could have been seen as subversive of the institutional self-interests of the churches. Not only was the ecumenical vision to be pursued through the organizational participation of churches in the WCC (top down) but also through the people (bottom up).

Ecumenical consciousness disappeared as a constitutional responsibility of the WCC in a revision of the constitution at the Nairobi Assembly in 1975, and returned at the Harare Assembly in 1998. One item in the new Purposes and Functions was to "nurture the growth of an ecumenical consciousness through processes of education and a vision of life in community rooted in each particular cultural context". (9)

It was not stated whether the ecumenical consciousness was to be nurtured in the churches or in all their members. Nor is it clear how the nurturing of a vision of life in community differs from or enhances an ecumenical consciousness. The language seems more nuanced than the boldness of that of the first constitution. However, the growth of an ecumenical consciousness remains a responsibility of the WCC. It is a hidden gem that needs to be rediscovered and polished so as to bring sparkling light to the ecumenical movement.

A decade after the inauguration of the WCC, Visser 't Hooft observed that the ecumenical movement was in danger "as long as its deepest intentions are not understood by the great mass of churchmen" (10). Some years later, he regretted that the ecumenical movement had ceased to be viewed as something extraordinary and had become part of the church's design. (11) One might say that it was like a modernistic building that is noticeable and controversial when first erected, but that becomes part of the familiar landscape after a number of years. People might have been aware of ecumenism, but it was not owned as a specific ideal. Michael Kinnamon has suggested that now, in fact, matters are worse than that, as the ecumenical vision has been "domesticated by the churches involved in the movement, impoverished by those others who are ostensibly its supporters." (12) This statement was regarded by some as a harsh judgment. In spite of the bold choice of themes for the Porto Alegre assembly--God, in your grace, transform the world--there was little sign of the churches queuing up to be radically transformed, or the institutional WCC, either. One could argue that none of this is surprising, given that those in charge might have the most to lose.

In my research, I have looked at what the ecumenical movement and the WCC can learn from social movement theories. That is not necessarily to say the ecumenical movement is a social movement; I remain agnostic on that point. Simply, the study of social movements offers a good body of knowledge that may shed some light on the ecumenical movement as movement and on the institutions, particularly the WCC, the movement has developed to support itself.

Nick Crossley (13) has considered different definitions of social movements and has highlighted some key issues. I summarize his conclusions. Social movements are collective enterprises, emerging out of dissatisfaction with the way things are and hoping to establish something new. They are public spaces/spheres, creating identifies, ideas and ideals. They enable sustained challenge to opponents and are based on shared beliefs and solidarity. We can see these reflected in the ecumenical movement and in the movements that comprise the ecumenical movement from the pre-20th-century movements (such as mission and education) to the contemporary movements (such as ecology).

The conflictual nature of social movements is emphasized by Sidney Tarrow. (14) Movements contend against elites and authorities in common purpose and social solidarity. Even though the ecumenical movement often presents its purpose as healing divisions, it is at heart a protest movement. Ernst Lange, for example, called ecumenism "the most massive domestic Christian protest against the way Christianity, by its alliance with the powers that be, had been transformed into its exact opposite". (15) Kinnamon has also argued that "ecumenism, when true to its fundamental vision, is a protest movement". (16) Moreover, "if the protest character of this movement is silenced, ecumenism will not just be impoverished--it will have lost its essence". (17) It may be easier, and more comfortable for the churches, to see the ecumenical movement as a protest movement against injustice, violence, discrimination, poverty and so on. For there the contention is against the elites and authorities of the world, leaving aside the benefit some of us gain by being implicated in offending societies. Lange, though, suggested that Christianity itself had been subverted. Therefore, we should protest about what it had become, of which the division of the churches is a symptom. The ecumenical movement is more than a means of churches reaching an accommodation with one another. It is an internally, as well as externally, directed protest movement. The essence of the ecumenical movement--as distinct from specific campaigning to address the divisions of the church, injustice or the abuse of creation--is that all such are understood as symptoms of the same disease. Tactically, they may have to be addressed with a particular focus, but we must see them in a bigger picture of protest and resistance against the powers that be (cf. Lange) that distort our faith and life.

According to Tarrow, social movements, and the organizations that develop from them, rely on "the trust and cooperation that are generated among participants by shared understandings and identities". (18) Movements endeavour to substitute "a dominant belief system that legitimises the status quo with an alternative mobilising belief system that supports collective action for change". (19)

To put it simply, movements name issues and connect them to other injustices or problems. In doing this, they construct larger frames of meaning that will both sympathetically resonate with people and will convey a distinctive message to those in power. However, a collective description of an issue does not necessarily result in collective action. It may even inhibit action. For example, the identification of injustice may induce an energizing anger or it may reinforce despair. Both the forming of consensus and mobilization are necessary for the development and success of movements and their related organizations. My own research leads me to conclude that the WCC has been more successful in identifying and producing collective definitions of issues (ecclesiological, social, political, environmental and economic) than it has been in mobilizing the members of the churches.

It must be recognized that the status quo almost always has more resources to maintain its frame of meaning than do movements that challenge it. To take the example of the churches, processes of Christian nurture and participation in their life and worship constantly reinforce frames of meaning in church members that are sympathetic to and supportive of their church's self-understanding and practice. This happens naturally. A movement such as the ecumenical movement has to be more intentional in encouraging an alternative frame of meaning and to mobilize participants. Ernst Lange suggested that, because a parochial outlook started to develop from an early age, a strategy for education for ecumenism should begin in the congregation. This implied a radical change in Christian nurture in the churches. Specifically, he proposed that ecumenical multipliers be trained to work at the local level to produce a necessary "forward leap" in popular opinion in the member churches. (20) The whole people of God and local communities needed to be able to participate in the ecumenical experience. However, with churches having a vested interest in the rightness and uniqueness of their tradition, there is conflict with the ecumenical vision. This point has been identified by Konrad Raiser: "Does the learning strategy of ecumenical renewal inevitably clash with the ecclesiastical strategies to maintain the status quo and to preserve continuity?" (21)

The essence of a movement is participation. Its energy comes from the enthusiasm and commitment of its participants. Its vision and activity are constantly shaped by the reflective practice of its participants. Movements are not like commercial service providers, where their visions and activities are ultimately determined by their own economic best interests and people are clients or customers. Neither are movements like membership organizations where, in spite of democratic structures, visions and activities are determined by governing bodies over which individuals may feel little influence. Movements are more dynamic and dangerous. Thus, I feel dissatisfaction with the statement from the "Ecumenism in the 21st Century" process that the ecumenical movement, in addition to institutions, "includes all those who yearn for unity and all those who dream of a common Christian voice on the burning issues of the day". (22) They are the ecumenical movement. The ecumenical bodies should exist for them--to encourage, facilitate and act as conduits for resource sharing. However, it is the nature of formal organizations that they wish to exercise control, particularly of resources, and that they may end up being more concerned about their institutional life than about the movement they were created to serve.

How do we break out of the institutionalized legitimization and normalization of a divided church by ecumenical bodies that so concerned Oliver Tomkins in the early days of the WCC? How can the WCC and the ecumenical movement be a stimulant rather than the narcotic feared by Visser 't Hooft? We can find the same answer in both social movement theory and the early history of the WCC. For movements, popular engagement and participation are essential. The first constitution of the WCC recognized not only the necessity of the members of all the churches developing an ecumenical consciousness, but the role of the WCC in promoting that approach.

Historically, the WCC appears to have put significantly more energy into engaging church leaders than it has the people of the churches. The strategy has a logic--leaders are people who can exercise influence. However, church leaders are chosen to lead churches, and churches, for all our spiritual talk, are institutions, with all the strengths and weaknesses that go along with that role. Understandably, those appointed to Central Committee or to the Assembly tend to see themselves as representatives of their churches to the fellowship of the WCC rather than as agents provocateurs for ecumenism in their churches. This is not to advocate giving up on working with church leaders to develop their own ecumenical consciousness and offering them training in developing an ecumenical consciousness within their churches. It is, though, to suggest that far more attention needs to be paid to the psychology and spirituality of engaging church members with an ecumenical vision and praxis. To put it bluntly, the WCC must be subversive of what Tomkins called the sufficiency of our denominations--not just for the sake of the health of the churches, but as part of our resistance to the powers that be that divide, distort and destroy the whole of life.

Popular engagement requires both cognitive and emotional mobilization. In the early days of the ecumenical movement, it may have been carried forward by novelty and enthusiasm. Social movement studies remind us that maintaining the impetus of movements requires intentional effort. Perhaps in an attempt to emphasize its intellectual respectability, the ecumenical movement working through the WCC has placed a heavy emphasis on the cognitive. We have piled up studies, reports and papers by the ton. Many of them are faithful, insightful and profound. They are not to be dismissed or undervalued. However, if their thinking, conclusions and calls do not permeate the life of the churches and their members, then studies, reports and the like become only of historical interest. We have not placed the same level of energy and commitment into the emotional engagement of people. Studies of political campaigning, for example, illustrate a tendency for people's political behaviour to be influenced more by eliciting positive feelings than by offering sound arguments. (23) The two, however, are not opposed, but belong together. A vacuous populism may not survive the test of time, but may do immense harm while it flourishes. The ecumenical movement, rooted in Christian faith, not only has to take the affective as seriously as the cognitive, but must understand the synergy between the two.

We do not face the challenge of engaging people without conceptual and practical resources to assist us. From work undertaken through the WCC on holistic education, we are reminded of the necessity of "the development of the whole person in community". (24) We must make use of the methodologies and processes of holistic learning. In addition to what we can learn from social movement research, to which I have alluded above, we can reap the benefits of research into human behaviour and internal processes. Daniel Goleman, for example, has given us accessible insights into emotional intelligence and its various applications on the basis of new understandings of the human brain. He has added to these insights with a more recent analysis of social intelligence. (25) In another area, the internet is not only a medium for individual communication or information. There is an increasing amount of literature on the realities and potential of networking, collaboration and collective action through the internet. Clay Shirky, referred to earlier, gives examples of the way in which people have been effective in engaging with one another, often escaping the controls and restrictions that authorities (including churches) try to apply. (26) The real possibility of organizing without organizations is something the ecumenical movement must take seriously. None of these are answers, but they do point to the need for us to cast the net wide--to be more ecumenical in our engagement with disciplines we have previously neglected or ignored--in order to be effective in engaging people.

The WCC understands itself to be "a unique space: one in which they can reflect, speak, act, worship and work together, challenge and support each other, share and debate with each other" (27) and has seen the creation of space as one of its functions. It has tried hard to make assemblies, central committees, conferences and consultations creative spaces. However, these have been spaces for the few rather than the many. We have to learn how to create space for the people of the churches--space for encounter, interaction and learning.

To end where we began, if we want the ecumenical movement to get somewhere, we really do have to devote our energies and imaginations to ensuring that "ordinary church people are involved in it, embrace it and carry the torch of ecumenism". (28)

(1) Elisabeth Raiser, "Inclusive Community", in John Briggs, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Georges Tsetsis, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, volume 3, 1968-2000, WCC Publications, Geneva, 2004, p. 243.

(2) Oliver Tomkins, "Implications of the Ecumenical Movement", Ecumenical Review 5.1 (1952), p. 20.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Oliver Tomkins, ed., The Third World Conference on Faith and Order held at I und, August 15-28, 1952, SCM Press, London, 1953, p. 130.

(5) Minutes and Reports of the Provisional Committee, Buck Hill Falls, USA, 1947, p. 47.

(6) For example in C. Shirkey, Here Comes Everybody: What Happens When People Come Together, Penguin Books, London, 2009. Don't be put off by the title, as the book has serious intent. Shirkey demonstrates how sharing, cooperation and collective action (aspects essential to the ecumenical movement) can be facilitated by internet technologies more effectively than by costly organizations.

(7) For example, G. Gassmann, "Unity", in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, WCC Publications, Geneva, 2002, p. 1172.

(8) I trace the emergence of the idea of ecumenical consciousness in my thesis, The World Council of Churches and 'ecumenical consciousness': How the constitutional responsibility of fostering 'ecumenical consciousness' has been reflected in the World Council of Churches' educational and formational activities from 1948-2006. The final wording, as brought to Amsterdam, emerged in "Constitution for the World Council of Churches, as agreed in Utrecht, May 1938", WCC Archives box 23.1.003.

(9) D. Kessler, ed., Together on the Way: Official Report of the Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1999, p. 364.

(10) W.A. Visser't Hooft, "The Ground of our Unit", in P.S. Minear, The Nature of the Unity We Seek, Bethany Press, St Louis, 1958, p. 121.

(11) W.A. Visser 't Hooft, Has the Ecumenical Movement a Future?, Christian Journals, Belfast, 1974, p. 40.

(12) Michael Kinnamon, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How It Has Been Impoverished by Its Friends, Chalice Press, St Louis, 2003, p. 2.

(13) Nick Crossley, Making Sense of Social Movements, Open University, Press, Maidenhead, 2002, pp. 2-7.

(14) Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.

(15) Ernst Lange, trans. E. Robertson, And Yet It Moves: Dream and Reality of the Ecumenical Movement, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1979, p. 5.

(16) Kinnamon, op. cit., p. 75.

(17) Ibid., p. 86.

(18) Tarrow, op. cit., p. 22.

(19) W. Gamson, B. Fireman and S. Rytina, Encounters with Unjust Authority, Dorsey Press, Homewood, Ill, 1982, p. 15.

(20) Ernst Lange, op. cit., p. 110.

(21) Konrad Raiser, Ecumenism in Transition: A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement, WCC Publications, Geneva, 1991, p. 23.

(22) Ecumenism in the 21st Century: Report of the Consultation Convened by the World Council of Churches, Chavanne de Bogis, 30 November to 3 December 2004, World Council of Churches, Geneva, 2005, p. 4.

(23) One such study that challenges a traditional view that voters go through a rational process of weighing up alternative arguments is D. Weston, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, Public Affairs, New York, 2008.

(24) P. Schreiner, E. Banev and S. Oxley, Holistic Education Resource Book: Learning and Teaching in an Ecumenical Context, Waxmann, Munster, 2005, p. 20.

(25) Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury, London, 1997, and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, Arrow, London, 2007. There is a whole raft of books on how emotional intelligence relates to work in organizations and networks.

(26) Shirky, op. cit.

(27) http://www.oikoumene.org/who-are-we.html. Accessed 30 August 2010.

(28) Elisabeth Raiser, op. cit.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2011.00105.x