Panelists at the "Great Conversation" on the future of ecumenism.

November 11, 1999

CLEVELAND—Billed as "an opportunity to formulate ecumenical expectations for the next century," the "Great Conversation" (Nov. 10) included nine panelists from National Council of Churches (NCC), Roman Catholic and evangelical communities.

Several hundred people attending the NCC’s 50th anniversary celebration here sat at round tables in front of the podium in the Public Auditorium expecting to participate in the conversation.

But the panelists, who sat in groups of three, sometimes talked too long to permit planned table conversations. When the audience did get a chance to go to microphones on the floor, many comments pointed to groups that were not represented on the panels, including Asians, Latinos and indigenous peoples.

The first panel included two women, the Rev. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., and Ms. Garland Pohl, a Roman Catholic laywoman and chair of the National Association of Diocesan Ecumenical Officers. But the second and third panels were all male, and when the third panel filed towards the podium a woman in the audience whispered, "Boys, all boys!"

Be that as it may, the conversation’s hosts—the Rev. Dr. Cliff Kirkpatrick of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Rev. Dr. Darlis Swan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – skillfully kept the conversation on track.

The first panel, which included Ms. Pohl, Dr. Walker-Smith and the Rev. Dr. Kevin Mannoia, president the National Association of Evangelicals, discussed the "past and present" of the ecumenical movement.

Dr. Mannoia said evangelicals have worked closely with the ecumenical movement to oppose such evils as sex trafficking. He predicted evangelicals and ecumenists would band together against other social problems, including divorce. "Marriage is the foundation of the kingdom principles of interdependence, yet in our country the divorce rate is high. The church can come together in all its diversity and we can see the divorce rate drop.

"We came in late but we came in hot and heavy," Ms. Pohl said. The ecumenical movement has been slow in the Roman Catholic Church, she said. "We weren’t very ecumenical 50 years ago. We were coming out of a 400-year counter-Reformation posture. You might call it an ecumenical cold war." Since Vatican II the church has increased its ecumenical activity.

Dr. Walker-Smith said African American churches "reject being categorized into sectors of the debate . . . We are evangelical, we are ecumenical, we are all people of God. We are all at the table because Christ Jesus lived that way." The second panel, which discussed expectations for ecumenism, was composed of the Rev. John Akers, special assistant to Billy Graham; the Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes, chaplain of Harvard University, and Father Joseph Witmer of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Aurora, Ohio.

"Evangelicals sense that a lot of ecumenism is local and that’s the place to start," the Rev. Akers said. He cited Graham’s crusade work in local communities which brings together pastors from many traditions and backgrounds. "I believe for evangelicals a lot of that ecumenical spirit will be at the local level."

Dr. Gomes pointed out that ecumenism takes on a different face at Harvard. "The University chapel is an extraordinary place in which east and west, north and south, and all creatures great and small meet, and not on their traditional denominational terms," he said.

In fact, many students "don’t have a clue where they came from or know about issues their grandparents shed blood over. It’s not a matter of burying the hatchet for them, many don’t know there was a hatchet, and for that we thank God," Dr. Gomes said.

Father Witmer pointed out that there is a difference between expectations and hopes for the ecumenical movement. "I expect that it will be unevenly passed on, that different bishops and priests will do it with differing degrees of intensity," he said. "I hope that the gospel demand and prayer (for church unity) will be realized."

The third panel, which discussed gifts to be given and received by different church traditions, consisted of Father Joseph Hilinski of Our Lady of Mercy in Cleveland; Father Leonid Kishkovsky, ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church in America and former president of the National Council of Churches, and David Neff, executive editor of Christianity Today.

The audience laughed when Father Hilinski recounted how a monk had warned him against traveling to a Roman Catholic Retreat Center where Methodist ministers were in attendance. "I said, ‘But Brother, Methodists don’t smoke, drink, gamble or dance. They must be quieter than Roman Catholic priests.’"

Father Hilinski also expressed thanks for the "Protestant gift of the Reformation, including the intensity of the acceptance of faith, that deep inner conviction about it."

Father Kishkovsky noted that Orthodox find themselves sitting on the ecumenical sidelines when Protestants and Catholics discuss the Reformation and Counter Reformation. "Orthodox can be sympathetic, we can wish Protestants and Catholics well in overcoming these divisions, but it is not the inner problem that concerns us," he said.

What is of concern, Father Kishkovsky said, is that much ecumenical dialogue takes place "as if the whole eastern half of the Christian tradition did not exist. I affirm Pope John Paul II’s reference to the two ‘lungs’ of Christianity, the east and the west. You need both lungs to breathe normally."

Mr. Neff talked about the evangelical commitment to action "which sometimes results in great and lasting ideas, like World Vision, and sometimes shoots into the sky and falls away rapidly, like the Promise Keepers."

One of the gifts Evangelicals have received from the ecumenical movement is the gift of reflection, Mr. Neff said. Even so, "I don’t think there is any gift we can give each other other than ourselves, because real gifts are from God."

The Great Conversation, which opened with the stirring Gospel Music of the Northeast Ohio Mass Choir, directed by Elder Andrew Butts, closed as the congregation stood to sing "God Be With You Till We Meet Again."