The Future of Ecumenism in the 21st Century

 The Future of Ecumenism in the 21^st Century

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
General Secretary
Reformed Church in America
October 21, 2005

Symposium hosted by His Holiness, Aram I
Moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches

New York

 In the popular American book titled Good to Great, author Jim Collins finds that successful organizations are characterized, first of all, by a willingness to confront the "brutal facts" that shape their life and define the challenges of their mission. That also, it seems to me, is where any reflection of the future of ecumenism must begin. But such honest analysis alone is never enough. In the face of those realities, we who follow the Risen Lord are claimed by the power of a spiritual vision that portrays a transforming picture of God's intended future, and beckons us to offer our service and our lives in faithfulness to that end.

But those of us whose lives are committed to the ecumenical movement often fail on both accounts. We don't look honestly at the patterns, trends, and developments in the actual life of today's churches that so obviously inhibit attempts to express the unity of Christ's body. Nor do we articulate a vibrant spiritual passion, and biblical vision, that has the power to break down those barriers and create new realities. Instead, we seem tempted to be content with an ecumenism defined externally by repeated prophetic utterance, and internally by perpetual institutional malaise.

Ecumenism in this, the 21^st Century must find fresh forms of expression, new avenues to overcome divisions, and inspiring vision that spiritually engages the churches and its members in this calling. That can happen, in my judgment, only by confronting our "brutal facts" and re-discovering the power of God.

I'll offer three questions—certainly among many others—that I believe we must honestly face in order to seek a future for ecumenism in this century that will be filled with hope and promise.

1. Will we be ecumenically inclusive or institutionally protective?

2. Will we be driven fundamentally by spiritual vision or organizational momentum?

3. Will we seek "incremental change" or "deep change" in pursuing this future?

Ecumenically inclusive or institutionally protective? 

During my time with the World Council of Churches, one of the fundamental questions I learned to ask was simply this: Who is in the room? Deep in the organizational culture of ecumenical institutions is the value of inclusivity. We always are asking, whose voices are being heard? That, of course, is why the participation of women and youth, as well as others whose voices have been neglected, are given special standing.

But as I have kept asking that same question as I look at those in the rooms of ecumenical meetings, another fact has become clear. Pentecostals, evangelicals, and often Roman Catholics are nowhere to be found. Or maybe, once in a while, a few are on the margins, or in the hallway, or looking through the windows.

All this becomes even more alarming when we recognize the global trends that are shaping the life of Christianity. These are some of the "brutal facts" that many ecumenists seem often to ignore or dismiss. One of the ironies, in fact, is that our ecumenical institutions today spend considerable effort analyzing the global trends shaping political and economic life, but virtually no time analyzing the ways in which the life of the churches themselves are changing. And outside observers often expect that's one area where a council of churches would have some particular expertise.

The picture can be summarized simply: the churches around the world that are growing the fastest, with the most vitality, are not connected to the institutional or relational fabric of the ecumenical movement. Look at it another way. As ecumenical institutions continue operating in present patterns, they become increasingly more marginal in the global Christian community, despite whatever activities they are carrying out.

For many years we've been familiar with the shift in concentration of the global church from the North to the South. But within this movement is also a shift in numbers and spiritual momentum from those "historic Protestant churches" to churches that are more evangelical, or Pentecostal, and/or indigenously rooted in the cultures of former colonial countries, rather than the descendents of colonial missionary churches.

The statistics are stunning. The modern Pentecostal movement, for instance, which is only about one century old, now accounts for nearly one-quarter of the global Christian community. Plus, an estimated 19 million Pentecostals are added each year. This astonishing growth is one of the most dramatic stories of modern Christianity. In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, 40 new Pentecostal congregations are started every week, and at least two countries in Latin America have a virtual Pentecostal political majority.

Take, for example, the Church of Pentecost in Ghana, whose leader I met at a meeting Africa last August. It has grown rapidly to 1.3 million members and 9,300 congregations, with only 700 full time pastors, but 50,000 ordained lay leaders. 10 new churches are planted each week, and 70,000 new converts join the church in a year. It now is present as well in 60 countries throughout the world, and sends out missionaries. Stories of churches like these are multiplied throughout the world.

Pentecostal bodies are increasingly building South to South partnerships, and Pentecostal bodies from the South build bonds with their members in immigrant communities in the North, especially in Europe. But relationships ecumenically with other church traditions are scarce.

However, they are not impossible, and there are examples that demonstrate what can happen. Pentecostal groups have joined councils of churches in countries including Korea, South Africa, Cuba, and France, to name examples. Often these churches have departed from the anti-ecumenical stance of their North American parent bodies. And at the 8^th Assembly of the WCC in Harare, a Joint Consultative Group on Pentecostals was established. It has done modest, quiet work, and some relationships have been built.

Dr. David Daniels, church historian with the Church of God in Christ, the major Pentecostal African-American denomination in the US (and also present in 30 other countries), describes Pentecostals as "explicitly individualistic and implicitly communal or social." The patient, relational work needed to build ecumenical links between Pentecostal and mainline Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches requires a massive undertaking of intentional outreach, prayer, mutual risk, and opportunities for building trust. This is an absolute imperative for ecumenism in the 21^st Century. Yet, it is barely on our agenda. All too often, ecumenical bodies have been content to keep Pentecostals on the margins, relating to them with less intentionality and interest than, say, to Buddhists.

The frequent critique of ecumenists is that Pentecostal groups bring an individualistic understanding of Christian faith that is politically reactionary and socially repressive. Therefore, why should we want them in the room with us? But this analysis, at best, is only partially true. In many cases, it is a misleading and disrespectful stereotype.

Certainly one can find many examples of Pentecostal churches preaching a "prosperity gospel" and echoing politically conservative rhetoric. Some of these are shaped by direct ties to similar groups in the United States. But one can find many other examples of Pentecostal churches indigenously rooted in their societies, growing amidst the poor and the marginalized, providing communal support in situations of social disintegration, and living as a true "church of the poor" seeking both spiritual and physical empowerment to free themselves through God's power from oppression.

Some Pentecostal leaders have told me how much ecumenical relationships have come to mean to them. They are challenged, enriched, and changed by the work of the Spirit in the wider body of Christ, as should we all be. But ecumenical institutions cannot hope to build fruitful relationships with Pentecostal groups unless there is a genuine willingness to make changes ecumenical style, culture, and practical priorities. That's as it should be, but I see little evidence of a readiness to do so.

When we think about it, there's another curious feature about the typical response of many ecumenical activists to Pentecostal groups. Our first impulse is to check out their political agenda, and their theology, before deciding whether we can invite them fully into our room. What if, in 1961, we had taken the same stance toward the Orthodox? What if we would have, in effect, made our fellowship with them in the WCC or the NCCC conditional on their particular political stance, or the social/political consequences of their theology? Obviously, we never would have made the breakthrough that broadened modern ecumenism at least beyond the boundaries of historic Protestantism to include the Orthodox tradition of Christian faith. So why is it that there seems to be so little energy, commitment, imagination, and faith to work for a similar breakthrough in ecumenical life in the 21^st Century?

I have spoken here thus far only about the Pentecostals missing from the ecumenical space, and not the evangelicals and Catholics. Further, all this is necessarily brief, inviting further clarification from those more closely familiar with these developments. But we can add a few more observations about those missing from the room.

"Evangelical" is a more elastic term than "Pentecostal," and therefore discussion about the presence or absence of evangelicals in ecumenical arenas is more complex. More damaging is the public perception generally promoted by the media that at least in North America, the category of "evangelical" refers automatically to Christians whose social views and political muscle is synonymous with the Religious Right. Again, this is a stereotype that seriously misrepresents the realities on the ground and inhibits ecumenical engagement.

Following World War II, a network of evangelical institutional structures emerged that were formed generally in reaction against emerging ecumenical bodies. Thus, in the U.S. the National Association of Evangelicals was formed as an alternative to the perceived "liberalism' of the National Council of Churches. That pattern became an unfortunate American religious "export" around the world. When the World Evangelical Fellowship was established, it provided a global fellowship to evangelical churches and bodies not willing to trust the opportunities and agenda offered by the World Council of Churches.

The passage of 50 years has brought changes in a generation of leadership and new understandings of the whole message of the gospel to both evangelical and ecumenical communities. Many evangelical bodies today are far more ready to define themselves according to what they are for, instead of who they are against. A growing theological maturity and self-confidence is expressed in a strong missional commitment that embraces a wholistic gospel, seeks to integrate evangelism and social action in a unified witness, explores creatively how to contextualize faith in Christ, and engages issues such as poverty, HIV and AIDS, and environmental destruction as expressions of biblical faithfulness.

As with the Pentecostal community, there is a diversity of evangelical voices on these questions. Some remain far more "reactive," and the media's addiction to sound-bites has given prominence to voices on the Religious Right and their followers. But any sense of evangelical unity around such views has long since disappeared. The evangelical community has become more diverse and divided, and many evangelicals are articulating a fresh and compelling witness on issues once thought to be only on the ecumenical agenda.

Consider a few examples.

Last June a group of American church leaders traveled to Great Britain for a forum of global poverty with church leaders in the UK in order to lobby the G8 meeting on the commitments to be made addressing the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. This was part of the overall ONE campaign to make poverty history. Archbishop of Canterbury Rev. Rowan Williams hosted the meeting at Lambeth Palace. The U.S. delegation included Rev. Rich Cizik, Vice-President of Governmental Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, Rev. George McKinney, from the Presidium of the Church of God in Christ, Dr. Glenn Palmberg, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church, Ron Sider, President of Evangelicals for Social Action, Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, and Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Coordinator of the World Evangelical Alliance, along with Jim Wallis, who as instrumental in convening the group, David Beckman, President of Bread for the World, and representatives of "mainline" Protestant churches. The group met with leaders of denominations, ecumenical bodies, and relief and development groups in the U.K. including Christian Aid. Their public witness to the media and private lobbying to government leaders was clear, strong, and had some effect.

Moreover, a letter to President George Bush prior to the G-8 and organized by the ONE Campaign urged leaders at the summit to:

"Help the poorest people of the world fight poverty, AIDS, and hunger at a cost equal to just ONE percent more of the US budget on a clear timetable;

"Cancel 100% of the debts owed by the poorest countries;"

"Reform trade rules so poor countries can earn sustainable incomes."

This was signed not only by those U.S. leaders attending the Forum, but many more, including from the evangelical community these leaders: Rick Warren, Brian McLaren, Max Lucado, Bill Hybels, Tony Compolo, and Leighton Ford. They were joined by Bob Edgar, Jim Winkler, John McCullough, Bishop Philip Cousin, and many others.

To those familiar with the evangelical community in the U.S., the breadth of these names and the constituencies they represent quickly turns peoples' heads and shatters old assumptions. Take just one dramatic example, Rick Warren. His book, The Purpose Driven Life, has been selling up to 1 million copies a month and has been the best-selling new book in the world since 2003. A couple of years ago, through an article his wife, Kay, read on the HIV/AIDS crisis, Warren's heart was awakened to the realities of global poverty. "I found those 2,000 verses (in the Bible) on the poor. How could I have missed that?....I was not seeing all the purposes of God." He has now launched a new effort, with a focus in Rwanda, to plant and equip congregations as they address poverty, disease, and illiteracy. His approaches may be entrepreneurial, creative, and controversial, but his commitment to combating global poverty as a central part of Christian witness is undeniable.

But even more striking are developments outside the U.S. in the global evangelical community, driven particularly by the growth of the church in the South. Remember that today, 70% of the world's evangelical community is in the South, a dramatic change in the last 3-4 decades. The Micah Challenge is a prime example of the changing global evangelical community. And I wonder how many in this audience have even heard of this? Here's the story. Hundreds of locally based community development organizations throughout the South, organized by evangelical churches and groups, began to form and join the Micah Network. Comprised now of 260 such community development organizations, its purpose is to provide a means of multi-country, international advocacy around the issues of global poverty.

The Micah Challenge has emerged as joint project of the Micah Network and the World Evangelical Alliance. The WEA, which evolved and renamed itself from the World Evangelical Fellowship, is a global network of 120 national and regional evangelical alliances, and 104 organizations, embracing about 2 million local churches. Obviously, a majority are from the South. At its 2001 General Assembly, the WEA adopted this declaration:

"As a global Christian community seeking to live in obedience to Scripture, we recognise the challenge of poverty across God's world. We welcome the international initiative to halve world poverty by 2015, and pledge ourselves to do all we can, through our organisations and churches, to back this with prayerful, practical action in our nations and communities. We believe …if the poverty targets are to be met:

• There needs to be a commitment to achieve growing justice in world trade in the light of globalisation; this must recognise the role of trade, particularly in arms, that fuels conflict and causes widespread poverty and suffering

• It is vital that a new deal on international debt is agreed by the G7 leaders as a matter of urgency and carried through by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank

… we urge governments and financial institutions of both North and South to act decisively, transparently and with integrity to combat corruption … taking the necessary steps to break the chains of debt and give a new start to the world's poorest nations."

This became a cornerstone of The Micah Challenge, which was launched last year as a major global campaign to mobilize Christians against poverty. Its strong advocacy agenda is linked to the Millennium Development Goals, with campaigns both at the international level and in various countries.

Sometimes I wonder, and worry, that promising initiatives like these are passing under the parochial radar of the ecumenical community. We're too familiar with predictable partners, and too protective of institutional, and perhaps ideological, boundaries. In December of last year, I had dinner in New York with a WCC intern who was finishing a rich year of work in international advocacy. But she told me that WCC staff colleagues engaged in this work had never heard of The Micah Challenge until that group's leadership met with Kofi Annan.

This much is clear. The 21^st Century offers new possibilities for a more inclusive ecumenical effort that can seek common witness with strong and emerging evangelical voices, churches, and alliances. But to do so, ecumenical institutions and agencies will have to confront their formal boundaries, their informal biases, and even their subconscious prejudices that stand as barriers to these possibilities.

The ecumenical participation of the Catholic Church has been enhanced by many new avenues opened since Vatican II. Few in the U.S., at least, realize that in over 70 national councils or associations of churches throughout the world, as well as 3 of the "REO'S" (regional ecumenical organizations) the Catholic Church through its appropriate Conference of Bishops is a full member and participant.

Until last year that was not the case in the United States. But after three years of dialogue, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops made its decision to become a founding participant of Christian Churches Together in the USA, an emerging fellowship on its way toward official organization. This is the first time in U.S. church history that the Catholic Church has made a decision to join such a body, and this has brought vitality and deepened expectation to the journey of CCT.

But at the global level, an ecumenical impasse remains. Terms have not yet been found for Rome to be a full and official partner in an ecumenical fellowship of churches functioning on a world-wide level. A Joint Working Group exists between the Vatican and the WCC, producing useful reports, and looking for specific avenues of cooperation. For 40 years this has kept open a channel for relationship. But at times it seems governed more by diplomacy between two separate bodies. In some ways, it can freeze the status quo; no one these days seriously puts on the agenda the prospect that the Catholic Church would join the WCC.

Whether or not the advent of the new Pope, Benedict XVI, and the fruit of many bi-lateral dialogues conducted between the Vatican and numerous Christian groups, will result in new possibilities, remains to be seen. The present reality is that in the broadest global ecumenical fellowship that presently exists—the WCC—the Vatican sits at the back of the room as one of several observers, rather than having a seat around the table. Present structures and prevailing assumptions from both sides won't really allow this to change. Something new would have to be imagined—but that, of course, is one way to describe the work of the Holy Spirit.

The list of those who seem not to be invited, or who do not respond, to the banquet of today's ecumenical institutions, goes on. Noteworthy in several contexts are those churches that have sprung up in the indigenous cultural roots of their societies, and whose identity is formed more by this reality. Most familiar are the African Instituted Churches (sometimes also called Indigenous or Independent). Simply defined, these are churches begun in Africa by Africans. They seek a deep embrace of African culture, but in that process encounter in fresh ways the complex relationship between gospel and culture within their context.

A very small number have found their way into ecumenical settings, including the WCC, but not without difficulty. Most thrive in their indigenous cultural independence, grow rapidly, but also face the challenges of any relatively young church that lives without ties to the history, witness and tradition of the historic church.

Similar indigenously rooted and fast growing churches are found elsewhere, like Brazil for Christ and the Jesus is Lord Fellowship in the Philippines. Globally, those in such "independent" and "indigenous" denominations now number an estimated 386 million people, compared to the 342 million in the historic Protestant churches of the Reformation.

We can summarize these "brutal facts" like this: Most of the church's future growth will take place in fresh, locally rooted expressions of Christianity that demonstrate promising vitality, but also display disturbing independence and isolation from the wider church. For instance, consider this: in 50 years, if present growth rates and trends continue, the world will be home to 1 billion Pentecostals. But our present global ecumenical institutions are comprised largely of the historic Protestant and the Orthodox churches. They are becoming seriously marginalized from streams shaping the future of Christianity.

We face an urgent need to build relationships between the independent, freshly emerging faces of Christianity and the historic expressions of the Christian tradition. My conviction is that there is no ecumenical challenge more important for the health of the whole global church and the strength of its witness within the world in the 21^st Century. But in the present agendas of ecumenical institutions, this concern at best languishes on periphery.

This much is true. As we look forward into the first few decades of the 21^st Century, an ecumenical body with evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Catholics remaining out of the room, or at best as polite observers, will have failed in its foundational mission and forfeited its capacity for common Christian witness. 

Institutional Momentum or Spiritual Vision?

One of the key questions for ecumenism in the 21^st Century, both globally and in the U. S. is this: what, in reality, will be the driving force to energize our ecumenical calling? I suggest two extremes that may seem simplistic: institutional momentum or spiritual vision. Yet, to many, this often seems to describe the choices.

Globally, ecumenism today is encumbered by the sheer weight and complexity of its institutional structures. The process of "ecumenical reconfiguration" was initiated by the WCC because of this bureaucratic burden. Its study on "Mapping the Oikoumene," done by Jill Hawley for the consultation in Geneva last December, provided a unique and comprehensive picture of the inter-locking and overlapping web of ecumenical institutions and agencies. On the one hand, the proliferation of so many bodies is a testimony to the growth in ecumenical vision. But today's reality is that their organizational needs overwhelm available financial and human capacities. An ecumenical attention deficit has resulted. The typical story is that today's ecumenical institutions shrink in their budget but not in their agendas, so their governance loses coherence, their over-worked staff become demoralized, and supporting churches become more disenchanted.

As such institutions struggle to be solvent, they fall prey too easily to the temptation of equating their sustainability with the continuation of the ecumenical task. When faced with threats to organizational survival, reliance on institutional momentum can actually squelch appeals to fresh spiritual vision. It's much like the local congregation with dwindling membership and declining finances that becomes determined to find any way to keep its doors open, but no longer asks why.

Fresh ecumenical experiments are present today, but tend to be found on the periphery of established structures and institutions. The Global Christian Forum is one. Its roots are in the Common Vision and Understanding process of the World Council of Churches, and it was endorsed by at the Eighth Assembly of the WCC in Harare. The vision was simple, but bold. Could a way be found to bring the four main "families" of the Christian community (Orthodox, historic Protestant, Evangelical/Pentecostal, and Catholic) into an intentional place of ongoing fellowship on the global level?

For several years this fragile initiative has worked with scarce funding and minimal recognition. But it has received faithful support and a needed infrastructure from the World Council of Churches, whose General Secretary, Dr. Sam Kobia, has not wavered in this commitment. Now the Global Christian Forum has begun producing promising fruit. Quiet, initial consultations to explore this possibility met with affirmation. Most significant was their process. I remember sitting in a room at Fuller Seminary some years ago, in 2002, with about 60 representatives from churches and Christian organizations covering this wide spectrum of belief and tradition. Each representative was asked to share their story of Christian faith. That alone took about two days. And in all my years of ecumenical meetings, I had never participated in such a process. The result was a palpable spiritual bonding that opened up other possibilities of relationship and trust that previously had been excluded.

A plan was developed to have regional consultations beginning in 2004, leading to a global gathering in 2007. The first was in Asia, held in May of last year and jointly sponsored by the Christian Conference of Asia, the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (Catholic) and the Evangelical Fellowship of Asia. Richard Howell, a participant who is General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, said this:

"GCF is the best thing that could have happened to the Christian Church in Asia. It created an open space where people could come together for the first time to share their stories and faith journey. The Church in Asia is growing, and growth brings challenges. The Global Christian Forum gave an opportunity for those form different traditions to listen. We discovered one another. And we discovered Christ at work within our different traditions"

The consensus of the group in Asia was to carry this initiative forward. Meanwhile, in India the Catholic bishops' conference, the National Council of Churches of India, and the Evangelical Fellowship of India have formed the National United Christian Forum, while preserving their separate organizational activities. In Howell's words, "We figured out that it was God's agenda to stand together, and we thank God for that."

Two months ago the Global Christian Forum held its African regional consultation in Lusaka, Zambia. As a member of the Forum's Continuation Committee, I was privileged to be present.

About 70 church leaders from all parts of Africa, and all parts of Christ's body, gathered together. They represented denominations and Christian organizations that included Baptist, Anglican, Pentecostal, Reformed, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist, Evangelical, and Lutheran churches, as well as the All Africa Christian Council, the Association of Evangelicals in Africa, the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, the World Student Christian Federation, World Vision, the United Bible Societies, the African Theological Fellowship, various national councils of churches and the African Instituted Churches.

Why was this so important? Simply because it had never happened before. As in previous meetings, we spent much of the first day and a half inviting each participant to share their personal story of faith.

We then shared the realities facing the church in Africa today. Most gripping is the devastating challenge posed to much of Africa by the HIV/AIDS crisis. The statistics, as you know, are staggering: 2/3 of the people in the world affected by HIV/AIDS live in sub-Saharan Africa. The gathering spent a significant amount of time focusing on both the theological and practical challenges confronting the churches from this crisis.

Brigalia Bam, the veteran ecumenist now in South Africa, and Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, a noted evangelical theologian from Ghana, each addressed the group on "Our Journey with Christ in Africa." The group identified several other areas of social and political concerns that were widely shared, including the issues of reforming governments, particularly in the process of democratic elections, combating corruption, and other initiatives to strengthen "good governance" and public life. What was remarkable, in my view, was the natural way in which this group embraced the necessity of the church to be strongly involved in "social action," while also giving clear attention to personal evangelism and spiritual renewal. There really was no serious controversy in this gathering over those issues, despite the wide diversity of churches and organizations that were present, and despite the fact that many had never met with one another before.

This diverse group of African church leaders responded to this encounter with enthusiasm, gratitude, and a clear commitment to create their own means to carry this process forward. Rev. Ekow Badu Wood, of the Ghana Pentecostal Council, put it this way: "This has been a beautiful opportunity for churches that have been marginalized to be given the opportunity to speak."

His words bear reflection, for like others, he shared the clear sense of being marginalized from the ecumenical community. That view was reflected often, and with real feeling.

Bishop Silas Yego, head of the African Inland Church, explained that his church never would have associated with the WCC or other "ecumenical" bodies. But at the end of the gathering, he told the group he had never been in a meeting like this, and was filled with gratitude, determined to build similar bridges in his own context.

Rev. Daniel Bitros, a pastor in the Church of Christ in Nigeria and former general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of Africa, put it this way: "A stone has been moved from off the top of the hill, and now it is rolling. There is no other ecumenical body that could have brought us together in this way. Now we have to make this concrete."

So the Global Christian Forum is a fledging initiative with little money, a part-time retired staff person formerly with the WCC working out of his home in Switzerland, and a committee that works mostly by email. But its vision seems to have struck a nerve. This patient, quiet work is now finding a strong response, especially in these regional meetings, first in Asia and now in Africa.

This is the same vision that propels the work of Christian Churches Together in the USA. Most of you here know this story, and are participants in writing the next chapter. The journey began in September, 2001 when church leaders representing the wider spectrum of the Christian community articulated a vision for a place of fellowship that would draw them together. When publicly shared the next year, they said this:

We lament that we are divided and that our divisions too often result in distrust, misunderstandings, fear and even hostility between us. We long for the broken body of Christ made whole, where unity can be celebrated in the midst of our diversity.

We lament our often diffuse and diminished voice on matters critical to the gospel in our society. We long for a more common witness, vision and mission.

We lament how our lack of faithfulness to each other has led to a lack of effectiveness on crucial issues of human dignity and social justice. We long to strengthen the prophetic public voice of the Christian community in America.

We lament that none of our current organizations represents the full spectrum of Christians in the United States. We long for a place, where our differences could be better understood and our commonalities better affirmed.

Early on, CCT identified five major Christian families which needed to be represented—in addition to Catholic, Orthodox, Historic Protestant, and Evangelical/Pentecostal, "racial and ethnic churches" were also included in light of the history and reality of these issues in the U.S. Over these past years a process of mutual engagement, agreement on purposes, and organizational planning has moved forward.

Today 32 churches (denominations) and Christian organizations have agreed to become founding participants of CCT. They represent well the first four "families." At its meeting last June, CCT's participants decided to delay their official launch in order to enable further dialogue with the Historic Black Churches in the US, whose participation in CCT is vitally desired. Recently, the first Historic Black Church decided to join, and others are in their respective processes of discernment and dialogue.

CCT's next gathering will be held in Atlanta in March of 2006. A central focus will be placed on how our respective churches understand and confront the challenge of poverty—a focus actually proposed by the Pentecostal/Evangelical participants in CCT and embraced by all.

Clear parallels can be drawn between the Global Christian Forum and Christian Churches Together in the USA. In both cases discussions giving birth to these initiatives started in existing ecumenical bodies—the WCC and the NCCCUSA. Both initiatives found it essential to form an identity and organization that is clearly separate from those established structures in order to have any hope of achieving their vision. Neither the Global Christian Forum nor CCT have any desire or intention of replacing existing ecumenical institutions. In both instances, the actual budget, staff, and capacity of these two initiatives is so minimal and fragile that most of the energy comes from purely voluntary effort. But in both cases—and this is the most important—the power driving these initiatives is a simple but clear vision which participants discover to be biblically compelling, spiritually empowered, and therefore virtually irresistible. 

Incremental Change or Deep Change?

We all know that the ability to change is one of the key ingredients to describe any healthy organization seeking a sustainable future. But most change, necessarily, is incremental. Robert Quinn, the author of the book Deep Change, describes incremental change as "the result of a rational analysis and a planning process….Incremental change usually does not disrupt past patterns—it is an extension of the past." This is what most healthy institutions generally experience—ongoing, incremental change. It's how those who learn to effectively lead institutions spend most of their time, and wisely so, mastering, accelerating, and directing the process of incremental change.

But times come when something different seems to be required, and it's what some like Quinn call "deep change." This requires "new ways of thinking and behaving. It is change that is major in scope, discontinuous with the past….distorts existing patterns of action and involves taking risks. Deep change means surrendering control."

When we look honestly at the "brutal facts" describing the present ecumenical landscape and architecture, and when we delve deeply into the spiritual vision under-girding our efforts, it seems at least to me that the future of ecumenism in the 21^st Century requires deep change.

Look again just at the numbers. Of the world's estimated 2.1 billion Christians, only about one-quarter are part of those churches making up the fellowship of the World Council of Churches (215 million Orthodox, and 342 million Protestants—but many of these are not in member churches of the WCC). By in large, those churches that have formed the foundation of present ecumenical structures are in decline, and those outside of such fellowship are more often the same churches whose dramatic growth is shaping the future of Christianity. The stunning shift in the balance of Christian populations from the North to the South further intensifies this picture. Whereas a few decades ago 70% of all evangelicals were in the "North," primarily in the U.S., today 70% are in the churches of the global South. At the beginning of the 20^th Century, 81% of Christians were white. By the century's end, the number was 45%. 542 million Pentecostals (more than the total of Christians in all the churches belonging to the WCC) continue their rapid growth throughout the world. The Catholic Church, which is projected to lose 20 million members in Europe in the first quarter of this century, will gain 100 million members in Africa, 50 million in Asia, and 140 million in Latin America.

So one must ask, will incremental changes in present ecumenical structures, patterns, and assumptions have any hope of meeting the challenges posed by the new realities of the church in the world as we enter into the 21^st Century?

Or look at this simple fact. An estimated 8,000 churches (denominations or communions) around the world have web sites. Most of these in terms of sheer number are not in the "North." What might this suggest about the possibilities for making networks of ecumenical connection in the future?

Even more astonishing is that the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by the Oxford University Press, estimates that there are now a total of 33, 380 denominations in the world. Only 347 are members of the World Council of Churches, and only a few hundred more who are not members belong to the complex and duplicative web of other ecumenical bodies. Optimistically, one can say that the ecumenical fields are ripe unto harvest.

But I do think that will require deep change.

Take one small but symbolic example. Does anyone here believe that it will make sense for the staff of major ecumenical bodies—the WCC, WARC, and LWF, for instance, to still be located in Geneva by the middle of this century? Or even 25 years from now? But the resistance to even seriously discussing such proposals is a metaphor for the challenge posed by deep change to existing ecumenical arrangements.

Like all here, I hold deep and dear value to ecumenical instruments created in the last half of the last century. My own church was a founding member of the WCC and the NCCCUSA. These continue to play important roles, make valuable connections, and empower critically needed witness and advocacy. But the future of ecumenism in the 21^st Century urgently requires space to nurture fresh and creative movements of God's Spirit—the Spirit that always seeks to build the unity of Christ's body for the sake of God's transformational mission in the world.

So my conviction is that this future must be shaped by a creative and inclusive ecumenism, rather than a protective institutionalism, by compelling spiritual vision rather than predictable organizational momentum, and by deep change rather than incremental change.

In conclusion, for the first time, God's grace is in the theme of a WCC Assembly ("God in your Grace, Transform the World"). Grace is such a distinctive feature of Christian faith, and a gift to all humanity. As we move toward Porto Alegre, all of us deeply yearn for the world to be transformed. But will we reflect and speak a distinctive word which the world hungers to hear? Will we explore what it means for God's grace to transform the world? That is a question which can engage all the families of Christian faith, and speak to the depth of human hopes and aspirations.

Todd M. Johnson, co-author of the 2001 World Christian Encyclopedia, said, "Christianity is steadily moving from this Caucasian, European-dominated, modern way of life, even beyond Christianity as an institution…There's no central, unifying narrative." This is far truer now than it was four years ago. And how can we ever hope to restore a "unifying narrative" if we aren't even listening to one another's stories?

That, it seems to me, is the place to begin. And in some ways, we come back to place where the ecumenical movement started, and always begins anew: engaging the wildly different and divergent stories of those who, in St. Paul's words, "were all made to drink of one Spirit," (I Cor. 12:13) and then asking where God would lead us together in the midst of the world. To paraphrase Walter Brueggemann, "We would as soon wish God were always stable and reliable.  What we find is God moving, always surprising us and coming at us from new directions."  May that be so for the future of ecumenism in the 21^st Century.