Abstracts
The Legacy of This Place: Oberlin, Ohio
Barbara Brown Zikmund
The Faith and Order Movement began in the early twentieth century when Christian leaders became convinced that churches needed to come together to engage their differences in understanding the Christian faith and in discerning God's intention for the right ordering of Christian churches. In 1957 the first gathering of the Faith and Order Commission in the United States took place in Oberlin, Ohio. Why?
This paper presents a description of early Oberlin. It explains how the legacy of the place was shaped by eight passions that laid a foundation and stimulated an environment that still persists in the 21st century. Early Oberlin was a place with ongoing commitments to: (1) racial justice, (2) financially accessible education, (3) a healthy life style, (4) co-education for women, (5) moral reform and civic integrity, (6) a curriculum relevant to real life, (7) openness to religious diversity, and (8) a willingness to explore unconventional ideas. Awareness of this legacy explains in some measure why Oberlin, Ohio is a fitting place for the 2007 fiftieth anniversary Conference of the Commission on Faith and Order in the United States.
The Ecumenical Significance of Oberlin
Donald W. Dayton
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The Search for Unity Since 1957: A Catholic Perspective
Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J.
At Oberlin in 1957 a great variety of North American churches committed themselves to the quest for unity. At the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the Catholic Church officially entered the ecumenical movement. In spite of her own claims to embody the fullness of Christ's Church, she recognized the presence of important Christian elements in other communities and keenly desired full communion with them.
The bilateral conversations of the past half century, using shared theological methods and sources, have succeeded in finding much common ground. But this style of ecumenism has by now achieved about as much as can be expected.
In recent decades we have seen a move back toward confessionalism, but this is not necessarily an obstacle to ecumenism. Ecumenism can be seen as an exchange of distinctive gifts. By appropriating what others have better preserved or developed, the churches can move toward mutual enrichment and harmony.
Evaluating Faith and OrderÕs Publishing Record: The Perichoresis of Texts and Contexts
Joseph A. Loya, OSA
The term perichoresis in the history of theology has been employed to condition proper reflection upon, first, the relation of the two natures of Christ and, second, the ontology of the Holy Trinity. Perichoresis is employed in this paper to convey the interrelation between published volumes by or about the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of Christ USA on one hand, and post-Oberlin social and ecumenical history to date on the other. A second object of this presentation is to demonstrate the degree to which Faith and Order publications have served to transmit and amplify the ecumenical voices of the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Eastern Christian Tradition. The texts subjected to contextualization here are selected mainly, though not exclusively, from the ÒResourcesÓ list for this conference.
The Apostolic Faith and the Holy Spirit
Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.
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Ecclesiological Malleability as Ecumenical Horizon
R. M. Keelan Downton
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The Bible on Postmodern Surfaces
Jione Havea
This paper emerges from of my wrestling with a simple question: What is the place of the bible in the postmodern world? I face this question at the confluence of three postmodern currents: skepticism toward metanarratives, call to embrace heterogeneity, and drive to make sense of the displacement of, and our distanciation from, sites of meaning and identity. I argue that the bible has a place in the postmodern world (even if critics cannot agree on what it means) and call for storytelling as a way of facing the currents of postmodernity. Storytelling is one way of assuring that our narratives do not slip out of sight, and an effective way to interweave our narratives with those of others. Storytelling can therefore enable us to maintain Christian unity in faithful diversity.
Orthodoxy, Post-modernity, and Ecumenism:
The Difference that Divine-Human Communion Makes
Aristotle Papanikolaou
This paper will illustrate the remarkable continuity and consensus that has existed in the Orthodox tradition on the principle of divine-human communion not simply as the goal of theology, but as the very first principle upon which all theological thinking is grounded. It will show how this principle was established in the pre-modern period, and formed the basis for the Orthodox response to both modern and post-modern currents of thought--no matter how one defined the period, the principle of divine-human communion always stood as the fundamental axiom of Orthodox thought. Insofar as the history of Orthodox theology is one of consensus and debate on the principle of divine-human communion, it exemplifies what it means to "think as a tradition." Although the post-modern context has redeemed such tradition-based thinking, Orthodox theologians have challenged post-modern understandings of otherness and difference, arguing that authentic otherness and difference are more securely grounded in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The post-modern context, however, has challenged Orthodox thought to give an account of divine-human communion that is both mystical and political.
faith and Order in a postmodern world: A response
Michael Root
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Christian Unity and the Abrahamic Faiths
Lewis S. Mudge
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The Buddhist-Christian Encounter in the USA: Reflections on Christian Practices
Amos Yong
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Issues Facing Ecumenism
C. Christopher Epting
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Issues Facing Ecumenism: A Perspective from the World Council of Churches
Sarah Heaner Lancaster
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