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Tim’s Revised NAAE Winning Essay Submission to Journal of Ecumenical Studies 2011

Towards Ecumenical Unity: An Analysis & Preliminary Proposal *

By Timothy LIM Teck Ngern Singaporean Ph.D. Candidate at Regent University

Adjunct Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Regent University, USA Tutor in Theology, King’s Evangelical Divinity School, London

Email: timteck@regent.edu

12th August 2012

1. Introduction

This paper examines the prospect of ecumenical unity in light of issues pertaining to

ecclesial identity, mutual accountability and hospitality. I offer a hypothesis that apart

from the trajectory of hospitality, the constructs of ecclesial identity and accountability as

ecumenical categories pose more problems than they would assist in the separated

churches’ process towards full and visible communion. After an analysis of the current

taxonomy of ecumenical proposals, I hope to re-engage the ecumenical project by

proposing a theological rethinking of “recognition” in an interdisciplinary discourse.

2. An Analysis of the Taxonomy of Ecumenical Proposals

Traditionally, ecumenical accomplishments are achieved through recasting the vision,1

clarifying the scope of unity,2 creating a dialogical openness towards conciliarity

* Thanks to Dr William McDonald and the Society of NAAE for providing a forum for students to participate in this contest. I would like to acknowledge Dr Amos Yong, my dissertation supervisor and mentor for constructive theology, Dr Jeffrey Gros, my ecumenical mentor, Dr Gabriel Fackre, my evangelical-ecumenical mentor, Dr Michael Palmer, my mentor in philosophy, as well as philosopher Dr John Inglis and philosophical theologian Dr Anne Joh for their generosity in spending many hours of their valuable time dialoguing with my ideas of dreaming a viable ecumenical paradigm. My deepest appreciation also to my beloved wife, Sharlene Yeo, for proofreading the original essay contest submission at short notice whilst caring for our three young boys, Matthew Lim, Owen Lim and Zachary Lim. Blunders remain my responsibility. I am grateful to Dr Russell Meyer and Ms Nancy Krody at Journal of Ecumenical Studies for publishing this piece for the Summer 2012 volume.

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fellowship,3 constructing models of ecumenical ecclesiology,4 revisiting the processes,5

and strengthening the embrace of ecumenical reception.6 Methodologically, ecumenical

dialogues seek convergences on some foundational, and/or fundamental doctrinal and

practical differences across different ecclesial traditions and denominations.7 Yet, the

pursuit of ecumenical convergences in the dialogical process has gone through several

rounds of recalibration: from “legitimate diversity” to “fundamental convergences,”

“agreed consensus,” “differentiated consensus,” “differentiated participation,” and

“consensus for commonality or for compatibility.”8 There is, of course, a rich history

1 World Council of Churches’ magna carta definition of ecumenism as “one fully committed

fellowship” with “all in each place” and “in all the places” agreed at the New Delhi General Assembly, 1961. See W.A. Vissert’ Hooft, ed., The New Delhi Report: The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches 1961 (London: Association Press, 1962), 116-135.

2 E.g., WCC’s Executive Committee’s definition of WCC’s ecumenical role at the Toronto meeting 1950; Harding Meyer’s That All May Be One: Models & Perception of Church Unity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).

3 E.g. His Holiness, Aram I, previously Archbishop of the Armenian Orthodox Primate of Lebanon, Aram Keshishian’s Conciliar Fellowship: A Common Goal (Geneva: WCC, 1992).

4 E.g., Lorelei Fuch’s Koinonia and the Quest for an Ecumenical Ecclesiology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008); and Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen, ed., Ecumenical Ecclesiology: Unity, Diversity and Otherness in a Fragmented World (New York: T&T Clark, 2009).

5 E.g., Paul Avis’s Reshaping Ecumenical Theology: The Church Made Whole (New York: T&T Clark, 2010).

6 E.g., G.R. Evans, Reception of Faith: Reinterpreting the Gospel Today (London: SPCK, 1997); Paul D. Murray’s edited Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

7 E.g., The Lima Text 1982 or Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. Faith and Order paper 111 (Geneva: WCC, 1982); Thomas F. Best and Tamara Grdzelidze, eds., BEM After 25: Critical Insights to a Continuing Legacy (Geneva: WCC, 2007); Susan K. Wood, One Baptism: Ecumenical Dimensions of the Baptism (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2009); The Nature and Purpose of the Church: A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement. Faith & Order Paper (Geneva: WCC, 1999); Paul Collins and Michael A. Fahey’s edited, Receiving ‘The Nature and Mission of the Church’ (New York: T&T Clark, 2008).

8 E.g., Michael Kinnamon, Truth and Community (Grand rapids: Eerdmans, 1988); Joseph A. Burgess, ed., In Search of Christian Unity: Basic Consensus/Basic Differences (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992); William G. Rusch, “Structures of Unity: The Next Ecumenical Challenge – A Possible way Forward,” Ecclesiology 2:1 (September 2005): 107-22 as well as the negative critic by Annemarie C. Mayer, “Language Serving Unity? Linguistic-Hermeneutical Consideration of a Basic Ecumenical Problem,” Pro Ecclesia 15:2 (Spring 2006): 205-222; Minna Hietamäki, Agreeable Agreement: An Examination of the Quest for Consensus in Ecumenical Dialogue (New York: T&T Clark, 2010).

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behind the pursuit of consensus dating back to Vincent of Lerin’s famous dictum of quod

ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper creditum before the modern ecumenical

movement.9 Despite remarkable ecumenical progress throughout this century, ecumenists

have time and again recognized that with each major breakthrough, new and old obstacles

resurfaced with greater intensity “enlarging the areas of possible disagreement” as if to

underscore the reality of deeper levels of disunity existing between the churches than the

“the unity we share” amidst impaired communion.10 It is as if the “winter of ecumenism”

never dies.11 While much more can be said, that will suffice for now.12 Are there ways to

break out of the ecumenical impasse? We shall return to this question in part three of this

paper.

The North American Academy of Ecumenists (NAAE)’s invitation for students to submit

essays on ecumenical unity reflecting on the trajectories of ecclesial identity, mutual

accountability and hospitality continues to be a much anticipated annual event both for

junior and senior scholars and theologians in the field. Like the platform created by the

Ecclesiological Investigation Network (EIN) under the leadership of Michael A. Fahley

and Gerard Mannion in the year 2006, the NAAE, founded in 1957, presents one of the

9 For a concise treatment of the history of consensus and reception, see G.R. Evans, “Consensus

and Reception,” discussion paper raised at Duke University Divinity School meeting 1987. See http://divinity.duke.edu/oxford/meetings/1987/12_1987_Evans.pdf.

10 P.C. Rodger and Lukas Vischer, eds., The Fourth World Conference on Faith and Order, Montreal 1963 (New York: Association Press, 1964), 41; Konrad Raiser, Ecumenism in Transition: A Paradigm Shift in the Ecumenical Movement? (Geneva: WCC, 1991), 1-30.

11 G.R. Evans, “Introduction: the ‘winter of ecumenism’?” in his Method in Ecumenical Theology: The Lessons So Far (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 1-18.

12 For an extended review of major ecumenical developments, proposals, and contemporary approaches since the inception of modern ecumenical movement, see Timothy Lim’s “A Prolegomenon on Mapping the Terrains for Proposing a Methodological Framework Prior to the Construction of an Ecumenical Ecclesiology” (paper submitted for coursework) on April 2010.

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most esteemed avenues for creative engagement with this recondite issue of whether and

how there can be new ways of conceiving unity in creative fidelity to each confessional

consciousness even as ecumenists continue to repair the damage done in the history of

Christianity’s internal division.13 The modern ecumenical movement would not have

made much headway if not for the founding members’ persistent pursuit of rethinking

ecclesial identity, accountability and hospitality, paradigms which remain fashionable in

ecumenical language today.14 For instance, in Reshaping Ecumenical Theology, Anglican

Paul Avis exemplifies the contemporary use of rethinking ecumenical unity in the

trajectories of ecclesial identity, accountability, and hospitality. Avis recommends that

churches apply a “hermeneutics of unity” for the embrace of “a robust [or chastened]

sense of ecclesial identity.” Avis calls Christians to remain faithful to their own

respective historic “confessional consciousness.” He also asks Christians to provisionally

recognize “the consciences of other Christian traditions” without anathematizing or

stigmatizing alternative versions of Christian truth claims. He then proposes what he

considers to be a realistic process on the way to communion in the pastoral economy of

God’s Church.15 Without undermining Avis’s important proposal, my analysis will show

13 The history of Christian unity and division is as old as Christian history has been argued in

Gaius Jackson Slosser’s now dated Christian Unity, Its History and Challenge in All Communions in All Lands (New York: E.P. Duton & Co., 1929). Without undermining the modern ecumenical movement, Slosser’s work will correct a view that ecumenicity is a project that rises with the modern ecumenical movement.

14 Besides the many volumes of Growth in Agreement detailing the progress of breakthroughs in ecumenical dialogues, see also narrative by Robert S. Bilheimer, Breakthrough: The Emergence of the Ecumenical Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989).

15 Readers familiar with the developments of the ecumenical movement will be hard-pressed to evaluate Avis’s proposal fairly. On the one level, Avis offers a perspective radically different from previous ecumenical proposals that appears to be more ambivalent in recognizing the churches. On another level, the realistic temper of Avis’s later sections of the book treating rapproachment, deeper convergence and agreement in faith (though it corrects the idealistic ethos of earlier ecumenical work) cannot be said to have really “reshape” ecumenical theology since these were familiar ecumenical models. What differs is the tempo to these directions.

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that the problem of Christian division will continue to perpetuate when ecumenical unity

is pursued through the instrumental trajectories of ecclesial identity and mutual

accountability (and to a lesser degree, the trajectory of hospitality). As a qualifier, I do

not mean that ecclesial identity and mutual accountability are not important instruments

of ecumenism, but that the terms raise so many questions that for me these trajectories

would present more challenges than would render assistance to the ecumenical quest

especially in today’s complex and pluralistic ecclesiological landscape.

Ecclesial identity and mutual accountability are heavy-laden terms. The immediate

question that would follow is that of identification, identity formation, and accountability.

When theologians and ecclesiologists use the term ecclesial identity, one must necessarily

ask, “Which ecclesiastical identity”? In other words, before we can formulate a reply, we

must ask from which center of The Church and the churches is the question of ecclesial

identity to be explored?16 If we follow Catholic conversations on whether Vatican II

exemplifies a continuity and/or discontinuity view, and in light of the range of Catholic

perspectives internally on where is the center of ecclesiality (i.e., what makes the church,

the Church), we would have to ask, “How is the ecumenical body to calibrate our

answers for formulating an acceptable theology of ecclesial identity towards ecumenical

unity if by ecclesial identity we refer to the Catholic Church”?17 Implicitly, the framing

of the Catholic Church as the center of ecclesiality will present problems for repairing

ecumenical relationships, especially in the case of churches that do not have formal ties

16 G.R. Evans, “Ecclesial Identity,” in The Church and the Churches: Toward an Ecumenical

Ecclesiology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 121-173.

17 E.g., Robert L. Fastiggi and Steven C. Boguslawski’s edited Called to Holiness and Communion: Vatican II on the Church (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2009).

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with high ecclesiastical churches. The issue is made even more pressing in light of the

inadequate language of Vatican II on ecclesial identities outside of the Catholic Church

(though at another level, the language of Vatican II is far more charitable and welcoming

than the condemnatory language of Trent and Vatican I on ecclesial identities outside of

the Catholic Church).18 Despite the more welcoming language of “separated brethren”

and “separated communities” (note here that Vatican II does not use the language of

“churches” to describe Protestant communities unlike their reference of Orthodox

communities as “sister churches”), the grammar of ecclesial identities in conciliar council

of Vatican II, as I would argue, has already called into question the ecclesial status of

churches who have not returned to the Mother Church when it uses the language of

“subsist in” the Catholic Church to describe these communities. Implicit in the language

is the identification that these communities do not belong as churches in their own right

of existence and identity.19 I do not say this to suggest a “wet-blanket” on Catholic

progress in ecumenism, but merely to recognize the immense complexity that comes with

taking major steps in affirming and/or reforming the Catholic view of ecclesiality as it

concerns the recognition and/or non-recognition of Christians from other traditions.

Which ecclesial identity? We may extend the question of ecclesial status to churches and

ecclesiastical traditions such as Eastern Orthodoxy or Protestantism, which are unable to

submit to the supremacy of the papacy in light of their own ecclesial traditioning and

18 E.g., Pope Pius XI’s Encyclical Mortalium Animos uses the language of “false Christians” to

describe communities outside of the Catholic Church. This is of course ratified in De Motione Oecumenica in 1950.

19 For an enlightening perspective of the Catholic tradition on the language of “subsistence” see Walter Kasper, “the Decree on Ecumenism: Read Anew After Forty Years” in Searching for Christian Unity, edited by John Paul II, Walter Kasper, Ioannie Zizioulas, Geoffrey Wainwright, et al. (New York: New City Press, 2007), 18-36.

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identities.20 The same problem of ecclesial identity as the measure for staging ecumenical

unity is not just focused on the Catholic Church. It is also a problem if Eastern Orthodoxy

or Protestantism becomes the standard for measuring the true Church. As Alister

McGrath notes in Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, Protestantism is problematic as a center

of ecclesiality in that it has granted license to the autonomous reading of itself as the true

center, to the effect that Protestantism especially in Reformed, Baptist, and

Pentecostal/Charismatic churches represents the most polyvalent Christian groups in the

twentieth century.21 As I have already pointed out, Romanian theologian Radu Bordeianu

as well as others has made similar observations.22

Turning to the notion of mutual accountability in ecumenical conversation, I would ask,

if by mutual accountability, the officials meant by implication that it is possible to

establish a multi-layered level of accountability towards ecumenical unity? Like the

foregoing conversation, this is also a complex issue. On the one hand, accountability of

Christian unity must be established on the grounds of faithfulness to God, to Christ, to the

Spirit, to the living communion of the faithful, and to the truth of revelation in

20 E.g., Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson’s edited Church Unity and the Papal Office; An

Ecumenical Dialogue on John Paul II’s Encyclical Ut Unum Sint (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 2001); Mark E. Powell, Papal Infallibility: A Protestant Evaluation of an Ecumenical Issue (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). In the Ecclesiological Investigation Network Annual Meeting May 2011 held at Dayton, Ohio, Romanian theologian Radu Bordeianu raises questions as to why the Pope refuses to accept the historical designation as the Bishop of Rome. Behind the question lies a deeper question on whether the submission to and recognition of Catholic tradition as the center of ecclesiality. See also Adam A. J. DeVille, Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity (Notre Dame: Unity of Notre Dame Press, 2011).

21 Alister McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution - A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Present (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007).

22 See footnote 20.

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Scripture.23 Accountability is fundamentally basic as a theology of Christian stewardship

and discipleship, and really should not be contested at all. But on the other hand, truth

and revelation implies the development of tradition, which introduces the question, of

whose standard and yardstick for the measure of Tradition and traditions are used in

ascertaining truth and revelation?24 Even though the development of doctrine occurs in

the context of ecclesiology (as have been argued by Singapore theologian Simon Chan),

there are major consequence on the adjudication and implication of doctrinal change (as

clarified by Evangelical Church historian Alan Sell).25 Still, in juxtaposing the question

of accountability with Tradition, we have just introduced a complication on the

appropriateness of accountability as an ecumenical leitmotiv for unity. Do all churches

accept the common Tradition of, say, the creeds of the ecumenical councils?26 The

answer is no. Polarity exists even here in Eastern Orthodoxy, within Catholicism,

between the Churches of the East and West, between that of the churches of Reformation

and the Catholic Church, and among those of the diverse denominations in

23 E.g., Philip Graham Ryken, The Communion of Saints: Living in Fellowship with the People of

God (NJ: P&R Publishing, 2001).

24 A question which have been explored in French Dominican Yves Congar’s now famous Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and a Theological Essay (New York: Macmillan, 1967), and with Avery Dulles, The Meaning of Tradition, and still earlier, by the now Beautified Cardinal John Henry Newman’s An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 6th ed., 1989, originally 1845); Rolf J. Pohler, Continuity and Change in Christian Doctrine: A Study of the Problem of Doctrinal Development. Friedensauer Schriftenreihe Reihe a Theologie Band 2 (Peter Lang, 1999); Alain Y. Thomasset, L’Ecclesiologie de ‘John Henry Newman Anglican’ (1816-1845). Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium CXCVIII (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006).

25 See Simon Chan, “The Church and the Development of Doctrine,” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 13:1 (2004): 57-77; see also Alan P. Sell, “‘Change and Decay’ or ‘Onward Still, and Upward’? Reflections on the Development of Doctrine” in Alan P. F. Sell, Enlightenment, Ecumenism, Evangel: Theological Themes and Thinkers 1550-2000. Studies in Christian History and Thought (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005), 166-204.

26 E.g., Confessing the One Faith: An Ecumenical Explications of the Apostolic Faith as it is Confessed in the Nicea-Constantinople Creed 381 (Geneva: WCC, 1991).

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Evangelicalism. Or as Catholic theologian Bradford E. Hinze asks after examining a

decade of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)’s activity, “Can Tradition

(not) Change?”27 The problem here is already complicated without expanding the

question of accountability in the direction of mutuality. And when we consider that

mutual accountability entails one tradition/denomination’s accountability to another

tradition/denomination on one level (which is already deeply complicated for if such a

form of unity is possible, there would have been no splintering of churches in the first

place) and mutual accountability to the unity of the universal church on a broader level,

then the notion of accountability is further flawed with the controvertible problem of

locating the universal church. It is just like the earlier problem: from which center do we

locate the true Church?28 And of course, the issue of papal authority, which we have

discussed earlier under the trajectory of ecclesial identity, remains a recondite issue that

need not be repeated again.

Perhaps, of the three trajectories on which NAAE invites contribution for rethinking

ecumenical unity, hospitality appears to carry the greatest potential as an instrument in

the pursuit of unity among the churches. Among some significant conversationalists on a

theology of hospitality, Christine D. Pohl’s Making Room continues to exercise

watershed influence on ecumenical theology, and not just to strangers outside the Church

but also to “strangers” inside the Church.29 The language of hospitality as that of

27 Bradford E. Hinze, “Editorial Essay: A Decade of Disciplining Theologians,” Horizons 37

(2010): 92-126.

28 E.g., Francesca Aran Murphy and Christopher Asprey’s Ecumenism Today: The Universal Church in the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008).

29 Christine D. Pohl, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). Her work have been variously cited and examined in other proposals on an ecumenical theology of hospitality, such as Amos Yong’s Hospitality and the Other: Pentecost, Christian Practices and the Other (New York: Orbis, 2007); Elizabeth Newman’s Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming

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welcoming strangers in the Church presents a hopeful prospect for advancing the goal of

ecumenical conversation towards unity among the churches. This is especially the case

for Christians and churches that were previously “strangers” to other ecclesial

traditions/denominations. It takes seriously the Pauline injunction in Galatians and

Romans on showing hospitality and contributing to the well-being especially of those in

the household of faith! It has also been recommended as a model towards

intercommunion or the sharing of the Table of the Lord.30 But at the present time, the

model for Eucharistic hospitality remains an unrealizable goal despite theological and

practical proposals.31 On another level, the language of hospitality can be seen as that of

inviting conversation but not deep enough so as to grant true communion and unity.

Apart from several biblical imperatives to show kindness to those in the faith, the

language of hospitality follows the grammar of cordiality appropriate for strangers and

not for deeper bonding with those in the family. And if one considers the Church as a

household of faith (albeit represented by various streams), then the logic of cordiality and

hospitality do not adequately represent the deeper bond of unity and communion for

those in the family; and in that sense, cordiality and hospitality may undercut what the

ecumenical movement seeks to achieve, even though I must concede here that the

leitmotiv of hospitality carries the weight of ecumenical unity better than the other two

notions of ecclesial identity and mutual accountability.

God and Other Strangers (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2007), especially chapter on “Divided House and the Table of Grace,” and Letty Russell, Just Hospitality: God’s Welcome in a World of Difference (Louisville: WJK, 2009), especially chapter on “Riotous Difference as God’s Gift to the Church.”

30 E.g., Patrick T. McCormick, A Banqueter’s Guide to the All-Night Soup of the Kingdom of God (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2004), especially chapters 2 and 3; Wolfgang Vondey, People of Bread: Rediscovering Ecclesiology (Collegeville: Paulist Press, 2008).

31 E.g., Jeffrey T. Vabderwilt, Communion with Non-Catholic Christians: Challenges and Opportunities (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2003); George Hunsinger, The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let Us Keep the Feast. Current Studies in Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

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3. Preliminary Contours in Rethinking the Theological Science of Ecumenicity

To facilitate the contemporary quest for models of ecumenical church relations with a

view towards unity, I propose to turn our previous conversation on the problem of

ecclesiality (i.e., which of the churches truly represents the true Church) in a slightly

different direction. I ask now, how can we facilitate the process of granting “recognition”

of the churches theologically? Though still at an early stage in this process of

reconstruction, I begin this section with an exploration of the technical term,

“recognition” before presenting a proposed contour for a fourfold ecumenical theology of

recognition.

In ecumenical theology, “recognition” is typically considered inseparably with

“reception” and especially after Gerard Kelly’s seminal work, “recognition” explores the

legitimacy and authenticity of the dialoguing churches in their “otherness” so as to aid the

quest for full, visible communion among the churches.32 Historically, the trajectory of

“recognition” began with the World Conference of Faith & Order at Edinburgh in 1937

calling for the “mutual recognition” as a particular way for conceiving unity among the

churches.33 Historically, ecumenical “recognition” discusses the acceptance of historical

32 Gerard Kelly, The Significance and Meaning of the Idea of 'Recognition' in the Work of Faith

and Order, 1910-1991 (Collège dominicain de philosophie et de théologie, 1992); idem, Recognition: Advancing Ecumenical Thinking. American University Studies Series VII vol. 186 (New York: Peter Lang, 1996); Eeva Martikainen, From Recognition to Reception: the Apostolic Faith and the Unity of the Church in the World Council of Churches. Europaische Hochschulschriften. Reihe xxiii, Theologie, Bd. 739. (New York: Peter Lang, 2002); William G. Rusch, Ecumenical Reception: Its Challenge and Opportunity (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2007).

33 The Meanings of Unity. Faith and Order Paper 1 (New York: Harper, 1937); Die Einheit der Kirch Material der ökumischen Bewegung, edited by Lukas Vischer (Munich: Theologische Bücherei, 1965), 257. It must however be said that in documents of the World Council of Churches Executive Committee Meeting at Toronto, the language expressing the vision of the formation of the WCC is not to grant the recognition of the churches but for WCC to become a platform of “ecclesiological neutrality”

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creed(s) as an ecumenical statement of unity, the interchange of membership, the

exchangeability of clergy and ministry, and sacramental intercommunion. As William

Rusch explains, “recognition functions in the context of unity in diversity, seeking an

ecumenical path between the tendency to remove all difference and the opposing

inclination to settle for mere coexistence or cooperation. It affirms a certain “otherness,”

resisting the urge to take over, to adopt, or to take possession.”34 Taking Rusch seriously

would mean that “recognition” entails not just the quest for theological consensus and/or

agreement – be it the use of consensus as conformity or compatibility. But, so far, a

lacuna exists in the quest for a theology of “recognition.” Prevailing ecumenical

mechanisms often ignore or downplay – so it would appear – the science of recognition

and bridge-building found in philosophy, socio-behavioral-psychology (human and

organizational) and political theories which are crucial for understanding why individuals

and institutions behave the way they do.35

Hans-Christoph, Schmidt am Busch, and Christopher F. Zurn suggest that The

Philosophy of Recognition (2010) is both influential in and influenced by developments

in other fields of the Gesistes- and Sozialwissenschaften. In the last decade, theories of

recognition generate a wide variety of inquiries in domains such as ontology and

epistemology, moral and political philosophy, social-psychological theory, action theory,

whereby member churches may participate in the quest for church unity without the risks of needing to admit, agree with, or recognize the fulless of other participating churches. See WCC Central Committee’s statement on “The Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches” and Vitaly Borovoy, “The Ecclesiological Significance of the WCC: The Legacy and Promise of Toronto,” The Ecumenical Review 40:3-4 (July to October 1988): 504.

34 Rusch, Ecumenical Reception, 87.

35 Yves Congar, ‘La ‘réception’ comme réalité ecclésiologique’ in Eglise et papauté: Regards historiques (Paris: Cerf., 1994), 254.

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legal philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and the history of philosophy.36 Socio-

political philosophers Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth are among others at the forefront

of the debates. 37 But within the fields of ecclesiology and ecumenism, the language of

recognition has only been explored as a subfield of reception although conversations in

practical missional ecclesiology have already broadened to include theories of

recognition in philosophy, politics, and socio-psychology, especially when practical

theology relates to the church’s mission to the oppressed, marginalized, and outcasts in

areas of color, migration, violence, women, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, and

classism.38 My proposal then, however preliminary, hopes to give voice to the fourfold

character of ‘recognition’ in philosophy, socio-psychology, political theory, and theology

in articulating a theology of recognition that would pay attention to these sensibilities.39

36 Schmidt am Busch, Hans-Christoph, and Christopher F. Zurn, The Philosophy of Recognition:

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (New York: Lexington Books, 2010).

37 Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or Recognition: A Political-Philosophical Exchange (London: Verso, 2003); Patchen Markell, Bound by Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003); Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: the Moral Grammar of Social Conflict (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995); Robert F. Williams, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992)

38 Harold T. Lewis, Yet With a Steady Beat: The African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996); Raimundo Barreto, Facing the Poor: Three Evangelico Responses to the Plight of the Oppressed in Brazil (DVM Verlag, 2009); M. Daniel Carroll R., Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI.: Baker, 2010); William T. Cavanaugh, Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans, 2011); Anthony R. Gittins, Ministry at the Margins. Strategy and Spirituality for Mission Series (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2002); Mary R, Sawyer, Church on the Margins: Living Christian Community (Trinity Press International, 2003); George B. Thompson Jr., Church on the Edge of Somewhere: Ministry, Marginality and the Future, Alban Institute, 2007); Cheryl J. Sanders, Ministry at the Margins: the Prophetic Mission of Women, Youth and the Poor (Eugene, OR.: Wipf & Stock, 2009); Christopher L. Heuertz and Christine D. Pohl, Friendship at the Margins: Mutuality in Service and Mission. Resources for Reconciliation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2010).

39 This proposal relates particularly to the interface of theories of recognition with ecclesiology. It does not undermine earlier and contemporary proposals that have juxtaposed sociology, management, politics and ecclesiology such as found in H. Paul Douglass, The Protestant Church as a Social Institution (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), Ernest Troeltsch’s The Social teachings of the Christian Church 2 vols. (Harper& Brothers, 1960), Richard Niebuhr’s Social Sources of Denominationalism (New York: Meridian, 1929), Robert Lee’s Social Sources of Church Unity: An Interpretation of Unitive Movements in American Protestantism (New York: Abingdon, 1960), Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Sanctorum Communio: A Dogmatic Inquiry into the Sociology of the Church (London: Collins, 1963), Presbyterian James B.

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In what follows, and due to space constraints, I can only sketch very briefly and broadly

the contours of a fourfold theology of recognition in engagement with philosophy, socio-

psychology, political theory and theology.40

a. The paradigm of recognition must, of course, begin with Aristotle’s definition of

Anagnorisis in Poetics.41 Aristotle moves the stages of recognition from that of

ignorance to knowledge, and unto the building and embracing of friendship.42 It is not

any kind of friendship, but to borrow the language of Deryck Sheriffs, the paradigm

pertains to Friendship of the Lord, and in the language of Sharon H. Ringe, a

friendship within a community of Wisdom’s Friends, which grows incrementally

through the stages of relational building of trust from ignorance to discovery and deep

bonding.43 As Croatian Miroslav Volf proposes in another context – which is relevant

here – embrace rather than exclusion is the paradigmatic attitude I seek to cultivate in

Jordan’s Sociology of the Church (Tyler: Geneva Ministries, 1966), Stanley Hauerwas, In Good Company: The Church as Polis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame press, 1995), and Catholic Johannes A. van der Ven’s Ecclesiology in Context [of management] (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), and Jesuit Daniel Izuzquiza’s Rooted in Christ: Toward a Radical Ecclesiology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).

40 Readers can look forward to a prospective dissertation that will tease out this interdisciplinary theology of ecclesial recognition more fully in one to two years.

41 Terence Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Philip F. Kennedy and Marilyn Lawrence, eds., Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative. Interdisciplinary Studies in Anagnorisis. Studies on Themes and Motifs in Literature (Peter Lang, 2008).

42 See Timothy Lim’s paper on “The Promise of ‘Friendship in the Lord’ as an Evangelical-Ecumenical Motiff” presented at the American Academy of Religion, Ecclesiological Investigation Network Group at Montreal, 2009. See also Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship. trans. George Collins (New York: Verso, 1997); David Burrell, Friendship and Ways to Truth (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000); and Steve Summers, Friendship: Exploring Its Implications for the Church in Postmodernity (New York: T&T Clark, 2010).

43 Deryck Sheriffs, The Friendship of the Lord: An Old Testament Spirituality (Carlise: Paternoster Press, 1996; Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2004); Sharon H. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1999). I am also grateful for the helpful comments from Dr Dennis Doyle, Dr Michael H. Montgomery and Dr Wolfgang Vondey.

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the movement of advancing ecumenical recognition.44 What is lacking in Volf’s

proposal is the movement from exclusion to embrace made possible by Aristotelian

and Hegelian notions of recognition.

b. Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit provides the famous intersubjective relationship

of lord and slave, which may be translated for my purpose to that of an intersubjective

relationship of “us” and “them.” The interest is to turn a new course of recognizing

the other without “demonizing” the other as inferior or less-abled. Here Emmanuel

Levinas’ philosophy of differentiation will provide a needed balance to Hegel’s

sublation of differences inasmuch as Paul Ricouer’s symmetric relationship of

relationality in The Course of Recognition will allow for an egalitarian framework for

an ecclesiological reconstruction.45 Viewed theologically, the philosophy of

recognition would enable a theology of unity amidst diversity in the church.

c. The prospect of distinction necessarily entails the step of judgment, evaluated by

means of taste, preferences, and other yardsticks of measurement, so Pierre Bordieu

teaches us in his reflexive sociology as analyzed by Loic Wacquant.46 Recognition is,

44 Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and

Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996).

45 Hegel, The Phenomenology of the Spirit. trans. Arnold V. Miller and J.N. Findlay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977) and Alexandre Kojeve, Bryan Frost and Robert Howse, Outline of a Phenomenology of Right (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) Emmaneul Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969); Robert F. Williams, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Robert R. Williams, Hegel’s Ethics of Recognition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Paul Ricouer, The Course of Recognition (Cambridge, MA.: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Jan-Olav Henriksen, Desire, Gift, and Recognition: Christology and Postmodern Philosophy (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009).

46 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1987); David Swartz, Culture & Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

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however, not a static exercise. It implies the journey of surviving the openness of

one’s identity to becoming vulnerable, which really as Kenneth McLaughin explains,

is the socio-psychology of recognition (as distinguished from the subfield of neuro-

scientific-psychology of recognition such as found in Shimon Edelman and Ronald T.

Kellogg).47 The quest for recognition viewed theologically with a psychology of

recognition is that of the metaphysics of being and communion. It bears some affinity

with Metropolitan of Pergamum John Zizioulas’s Communion and Otherness.48

While Zizioulas’ project is located within the Orthodox tradition and the Greek

culture (and in spite of critics like Andrew Louth’s rejection of Zizioulas as

representing faithfully a “neo-patristic synthesis”), what matters is the socio-

psychology of being and otherness in communion I hope to engage theologically.

d. In Axel Honneth’s post-Hegelian struggle for political recognition by means of love,

law and solidarity will check the unhealthy tendency of human fallibility in the

direction of abuse, exclusion and denigration, all of which are significant principles

for reconstructing a healthy theology of ecumenical recognition among the churches.

Iris Marion Young’s Politics of Difference and Charles Taylor’s Politics of

Recognition provide the needed balance to push the frontiers of recognition and not

succumb to the status quo in advancing the progress of ecumenical unity.49

47 Richard Ganis, The Politics of Care in Habermas and Derrida: Between Measurability and

Immeasurability (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington, 2011); Kenneth McLaughlin, Surviving Identity: Vulnerability and the Psychology of Recognition. Concepts for Critical Psychology (Routledge: 2011).

48 John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, edited by Paul McPartlan (New York: T&T Clark 2006).

49 Charles Taylor and Amy Gutmann, eds., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); idem, Intersecting Voices: Dilemmas of Gender, Political Philosophy and Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Axel Honneth The Struggle

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e. Hopefully in the above mentioned, I have provided some broad contours for a

constructive work aimed to help rethink theological recognition of the relationship

among churches from that of a center-and-peripheral paradigm to that of affirming the

uniqueness of “us” and “them” symmetrically. The progress from ignorance and

arrogance would be replaced by knowledge, friendship and unity, and thus

transforming the churches witness to unity and mission to the world. This fourfold

reading attempts “to reframe the debate about ecclesial differences [and] about what

is constitutive of the Church” through the lens of “recognition.”50

4. Conclusion

This short paper explores the current taxonomy of ecumenical unity proposals and asks to

what end the trajectories of ecclesial identity, accountability, and hospitality provides a

useful framework for facilitating the healing of impaired communion among the

churches. In light of past and present researches, I have shown my hypothesis that apart

from the trajectory of hospitality, the construct of ecclesial identity and accountability as

ecumenical categories poses more problems than it would assist in the process towards

full and visible communion among separated churches. I have also provided a

preliminary contour of an interdisciplinary view of “recognition” as a viable alternative

for future discourses in the pursuit of ecumenical unity among separated churches.

for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005); idem, Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007); Simon Thompson, The Political Theory of Recognition: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006); Lois McNay, Against Recognition (Oxford: Polity Press, 2007).

50 William J. Abraham, “Church and the Churches: Ecumenism” in The Oxford handbook of Evangelical Theology, edited by Gerald R. McDermott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 307.