MAKING YESTERDAY’S COLUMN CLEARER [Sun, 8-25-24=

BEYOND WINTER: The Slightly Relevant Corrections of an Old Man—MAKING YESTERDAY’S COLUMN CLEARER [Sun, 8-25-24=

 

I should have made a better distinction in yesterday’s column between the ecumenical movement and the church union movement. [Might be better to read the 8-24 column first if you haven’t yet.]

“Ecumenicity” is simply being open to those with other traditions, cooperating across denominational lines. “Church union” is merging all the denominations into one. Ecumenism works wherever folks meet one another with open minds and good hearts. No one has yet figured out how to make church union work.

The people in the Christian student movement always wanted to be, rightly, on the cutting edge of moving Christianity forward. That’s why the National Student Christian Federation [NSCF] was created, to unite the denominational student movements. The theory was that we would be a stronger force for good if we were united in one organization, speaking with one voice. And that we would be a witness to the old people [anyone over 22] in the churches, leading the way, teaching them how to do real Christian ecumenicity by uniting organizationally.

We did not understand that we could be united in mission without being united in organization. We definitely did not understand that organizational union might actually be a detriment to mission.

It was, though. The NSCF took in the Methodist Student Movement along with the student movement organizations of all the major denominations, and several of the smaller denominations. But it didn’ t work, for the reasons I listed yesterday. It lasted only 8 years. When it folded, there were no denominational student movements left. In the attempt to be together, we killed the whole student movement. The student generation was finished.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t campus ministry units left at various universities. But they were no longer part of a movement.

The church in general, though, the Body of Christ, learned from that. We learned that we can be ecumenical in spirit without being united in organization.

Ecumenicity has gathered strength in the last several years, denominations agreeing to recognize the baptism of others, sharing in communion.

Yes, the church is waning in attendance and participation and influence. But we are gaining in identity. Perhaps the hymn of Peter Scholtes will yet sing true, that “They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”

John Robert McFarland