Ecumenical Fest will celebrate Vatican Council's unity decree

Ecumenism, says Dr. Michael Kinnamon, is more than just talk. It's "a wonderful sharing of gifts with one another because we recognize that we belong to one another."

On Nov. 21, he will give the keynote speech at the Great Thanksgiving Ecumenical Fest at New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Albany. Sponsored by the Albany diocesan Commission for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, the event will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's historic "Decree on Ecumenism."

Dr. Kinnamon is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and a professor of Mission and Peace at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.

'One body'

"We're already in basic communion because of what God has done in Christ," Dr. Kinnamon told The Evangelist. "There is one body, and the parts of it do not get to say, 'We have no need of you,' to the others. That's what the 'Decree on Ecumenism' is so clear about: that the restoration of unity is the central concern of the whole Church, since our divisions contradict the will of God."

With the Decree, the Roman Catholic Church moved from the sidelines of an already lively but mainly Protestant ecumenical discussion to "right in the middle of it," explained Dr. Kinnamon, who is a member of the international dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Disciples of Christ.

Among other things, the Decree called for the restoration of unity among Christians of differing stripes, noting that all who have been "justified by faith in baptism" are members of the Body of Christ and that "the children of the Catholic Church accept them as brothers."

Dialogue

Church unity is not synonymous with total agreement on every tiny doctrinal matter, Dr. Kinnamon said, adding that ecumenists should not gloss over or ignore the crucial issues that have historically divided Catholics and Protestants.

Those matters should be actively discussed, he noted, but the differences should not preclude acknowledgement of a greater unity.

"They're not minor differences," he noted, "but they're also not as significant as what we already commonly affirm: the lordship of Jesus Christ and the triune nature of God. Even though we can't share fully at the table, we can celebrate our baptismal vows together. The Church is wider than our individual expression of it. We who are estranged have been reconciled, but the bad news is that we don't live it."

Advances

Huge strides have been made in ecumenism, Dr. Kinnamon said, listing as an example the 1999 agreement between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches about the nature of justification, which was the main theological difference underpinning the Protestant Reformation. He called that agreement "astonishing."

"The gifts that [Catholics] bring [to ecumenical dialogue] include a sense of continuity in the faith, the global reach of the faith and a sense of the teaching authority of the faith over the centuries that many of the rest of us look at as an important contribution to the wholeness of church life," he said.

(Call 453-6660 for information on the Great Thanksgiving Ecumenical Fest. Tickets are $15. The day-long event will include workshops on social justice and the ecumenical implications of the Eucharist. Bishop Howard J. Hubbard will speak at the evening worship service.)

(11/11/04)