A document that has “the capacity to change the World Council of Churches” was the subject of discussion at a series of meetings held in Toronto in early April. Called To Be One Church challenges churches to act upon the unity they seek with each other, Rev. Canon Dr. John Gibaut, Director of the WCC's Faith and Order committee, told an assembly of members from the United States and Canada. The brief document – at 2,300 words it is a filtering down of various other statements on the nature and purpose of the church dating to 1998 – “challenges us with 10 questions” that set the WCC's 349 member churches on “a call to journey … an arduous yet joyful path.”
Gibaut was speaking at the second day of a joint series of meetings between the World Council of Churches Relations Committee (WCCR) and the board of the United States Conference for the World Council of Churches, held at Trinity College, Toronto. The first day of meetings were at St. Andrew's, King St., Toronto. Much of the first day was taken up with business meetings and discussion on the future of the WCC in light of Samuel Kobia's decision to not seek another term as general secretary.
The second day was spent discussing Called To Be One Church, which Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary, NCCCUSA, said “seeks to promote relationships among churches, which is the heart of all councils of churches.”
“This statement comes at a critical time, a time of denominational redefintion,” said Rev. Canon Dr. Alyson Barnett-Cowan, Director of Faith, Worship and Ministry, at the Anglican Church of Canada. She joked her church was a great example of this shift, holding a very public debate on homosexuality in “the internet age.” “Many churches are internally divided and this is an acid test for ecumenism.”
At the heart of the discussion was the nature and the future of ecumenism itself. Other speakers noted that an Orthodox church had pulled out of ecumenical discussions recently. And others made note of Pope Benedict XVI's widely reported statement last year that Roman Catholicism was the only true church. Margaret O'Gara, faculty at St. Michael's College, Toronto, said the Pope's statement was largely misunderstood since it was meant to be an internal church document and was written in the church's own largely obscure language and jargon. She said the document was a defense against those internal factions which sought to isolate the Roman Catholic Church from the ecumenical movement and was a reiteration of Vatican II's support of ecumenism.
“All churches are wounded by division,” she noted. “We can't continue to run from each other.” She, amongst others, listed same-sex, women's ordination, just war and abortion as issues that continue to hinder a conversation of mutual responsibility demanded by the document.
Called to Be One Church can be found on the WCC's website: oikoumene.org. -AF
