Common Vision, Common Understanding

The Church: Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV)¹ is an ecumenically sensitive document that attempts to reflect the great diversity of beliefs and practices of the member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC). As a self-described “convergence text,” there is much that may be affirmed from an Orthodox Christian perspective, such as the acknowledgement of the ecumenical councils that helped to maintain orthodoxy, the testimony of the primitive church to a threefold pattern of ministry, and even a nod to the scriptural roots of the episcopacy.² I was especially pleased to read the acknowledgement that the divinity of Christ has been historically recognized as one of the “essentials” of the Christian faith.³

The document also includes thought-provoking questions and reflections for additional study at the end of each section. For example, the reflection at the end of Chapter II-D acknowledges that a fundamental challenge to unity includes the lack of common criteria to discern between legitimate and illegitimate diversity.⁴ My reflections today will touch upon those two issues—diversity and unity—through the lens of the document’s reference to a need for “common criteria” for discernment. I will refer loosely to Chapter I-C, “The Importance of Unity,” and Chapter II-D, “Communion in Unity and Diversity.”

Some of you may remember the late pop star, Michael Jackson, singing “I’m bad, I’m bad.” What he was actually saying (in case you did not already know), was that he was “really, really cool.” In Southern California we have surfers and skaters who, when they refer to something as “sick,” really mean that it is “awesome.” When something is “ill,” it is even better than “sick.” The superlative is “insane.” Therefore, “bad,” “sick,” “ill,” and “insane” are now all positive terms for a growing subset of English speakers. In many ways it is becoming a challenge to decipher a new generation’s terminological novelties—to find the current meaning behind basic terms once thought to be universally understood. Leaders in any organization today know that what may have been self-evident in the past can no longer be relied upon. The ground is continually shifting around concepts whose meanings had been commonly understood in very different ways in the past than they are now. Shifts in meaning are also occurring in world Christianity, usually with corresponding ecclesiological shifts. Even such straightforward, foundational, and biblical terms as “church,” “truth,” “communion,” and especially its cognate, “unity” are in flux today.

Let me elaborate this point by way of a summary by Michael Root in his article, “Essential Unity and Lived Communion: The Interrelation of the Unity We Have and the Unity We Seek.”⁵ Root has pointed out that the modern ecumenical movement is driven by a contradiction. Obviously, there is a “real disunity” that plagues Christianity in the world, which not only burdens mission but is itself a scandal. However, most Christian groups have come to recognize that they share some basic elements or aspects with other groups with which they are not in communion. The contradiction arises, he believes, from the use of the term “unity” in a distinct sense. Root suggests that a way out of the contradiction could be to define “unity” as “relation.” If an ecclesial group or communion has something in common with some other group—and through that commonality a relation is formed—then what they have is a kind of unity, in one sense. Then, again, another set of relations does not exist; therefore, they are not “united” in the second sense. According to Root’s analysis, the “diverse senses of unity” refer to these different sets of relations.⁶ An example might be that affirming the sacramental nature of the eucharist would create a “relation” or “a kind of unity” between two groups, even though there may not be a concomitant agreement about Christ’s presence in the eucharist and, thus, no eucharistic sharing. It would then be, according...