Faith and Order Plenary Commission meeting 2009

Mel Robeck, faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary, California, has been a member of the Faith and Order Commission for 20 years. As a member of the Assemblies of God (a Pentecostal church with a membership of 62 million), he represents his church in various theological dialogues. He tells me that he has gained so much from these meetings that he is now “more Christian”. I met him in the course of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission...

The Faith and Order Plenary Commission meeting, which took place in Kolympari, Crete, 7-13 October 2009, has come to an end. Participants noted an emerging coherence between the three current studies on Nature and Mission of the Church, Sources of Authority and Moral Discernment in the Churches. A tendency to give more space to an "ecclesiology from below" based on the concrete experience of "being church in a particular...

Why do some Christians support one position on a public issue while other Christians defend the opposing viewpoint? How do some churches come to adopt a particular moral stance, yet other church bodies disagree with that conclusion? Can Christianity avoid divisions within and among churches over such conflicts?

Recommendations to extend and expand a consultation process on "The Nature and Mission of the Church" emerged from 12 small groups reviewing the text of that title on the final day of a 7-13 October meeting of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission at the Orthodox Academy of Crete in Kolympari, Greece. The groups' proposals will be forwarded to the smaller Faith and Order Standing Commission and to officials of the World Council of...

"The search for Christian unity is very costly, as well as slow and painful," says Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. "And yet there is hope for the quest of church unity by God's grace."

Analysis of the churches' sources of authority is a subject of immediate concern in the quest for Christian unity. "Authority" in the church is a concept that has divided Christians. Some traditions see Scripture alone as the unparalleled authority for faith and life, others appeal to particular authors, creeds and confessions, while still others look to a council, church hierarchy or a single office as the authoritative interpreter of...

Is there real potential for visible unity among today's churches, or are cultural and dogmatic differences too great to be overcome? These were key issues raised on Friday 9 October in five presentations at the Faith and Order conference in Kolympari, Greece.

"We must find a way to build on what we have achieved, or else it will evaporate", warned Mary Tanner, a former moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission. Suggesting that she might be considered a "grandmother of Faith and Order", Tanner reviewed highlights of the quest for unity since the early 1900s, and she recalled an exhortation from the most recent World Conference on Faith and Order in...

Because unity is finally a gift of God, "it demands a profound sense of humility and not any prideful insistence." With this call to the "never-ending search" for unity of the church, which "is also an ever-unfolding journey", Patriarch Bartholomew I opened the 7-14 October meeting of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission, in Kolympari, Crete, Greece.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will open the meeting of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Faith and Order, which will take place in Kolympari, Crete, Greece, from 7 to 14 October 2009.

An upcoming meeting of 120 theologians from nearly all Christian traditions will be looking at what churches consider to be their mission in the world and how they come to decisions on theological, ecumenical or moral questions.

Anybody with an interest in what churches consider to be their mission in the world and how they come to decisions on theological, ecumenical or moral questions should look forward with some excitement to the 7-13 October 2009 meeting of the Faith and Order Plenary Commission. Anglican theologian Canon Dr John Gibaut from Canada, WCC director of Faith and Order, explains why.