April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
OUR NEIGHBORS' FAITH
Ecumenical study group in Salem
Outreach ministries are generously supported with leadership, volunteers and funds from every church. There are long-standing ecumenical worship services on occasions such as Thanksgiving, baccalaureate services and newer, seasonal services in Advent and Lent with a well-regarded ecumenical choir. Several years ago, a new program began as a Lenten project. It now meets periodically throughout the year.
The principal ecumenical Lenten activity in Salem and Hebron is a weekly gathering for lunch and worship. However, it was suggested that some kind of evening program might be a welcome addition.
I, a retired priest of the Episcopal Church serving as part-time parish priest at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Salem, offered to lead a book study. Henri Nouwen's "The Return of the Prodigal Son" was selected.
The response to this experience was so positive that members of the group decided to meet again after Easter that year and read a second book together: "Amish Grace" by Donald Kraybill et al.
Both books are about forgiveness. Both books challenge the reader to consider forgiveness in new ways. Nouwen's approach is deeply introspective; the Amish approach is forthrightly concrete. Coming from very different faith traditions, both come to the same conclusion: that radical forgiveness and reconciliation are essential to the Christian way of life.
From this beginning, the group has continued, reading two or three books a year. There is a core of original members from several churches who have stayed with the group, but the membership is fluid.
The books have included "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis; "Lincoln's Greatest Speech," Ronald White's study of President Lincoln's profoundly theological second inaugural address; "The Shaker Adventure" by Marguerite Melcher; and, currently, "Living Icons" by Michael Plekon.
One significant thing about the group is the gradual shift in its focus. Initially, it was a Lenten study group - ecumenical in composition, but otherwise no different than groups found in hundreds of other churches. However, the group does not meet only in specific liturgical seasons and the books chosen (by consensus) often look into faith traditions not represented in our local community.
These explorations have inevitably led us to a consideration of ecumenical issues involving our own traditions, looking both at our divisions and at the things we hold in common.
A recurring theme in our current book has had a particular resonance with the group in this regard. Plekon's "Living Icons" tells the stories of Russian Orthodox Christians living outside of Russia in the 20th century. Members of a deeply conservative church, several of these men and women came to realize in their own lives not only the power, but also what they regarded as limitations of their Russian Orthodox tradition.
In their teaching and practice, some of them began to move beyond the ecumenical norms of their time to a broader vision. Rather than an institutionally-centered ecumenism, they projected a more personal, sacramental ecumenism. Their ideas encountered opposition and even condemnation within Orthodoxy, but they continued in quest of the unity for which our Lord prayed.
Our Salem/Hebron book group is nearing the end of its current series and is looking forward to resuming in the fall. Another pioneer in religious movements, Roger Williams, is the subject of the next book on our agenda.
(Rev. Kriss was dean of Albany's Episcopal Cathedral of All Saints in 1987, when the covenant relationship was sealed between All Saints Cathedral and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany.)[[In-content Ad]]
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