Ecclesiastical Summitry
QUI1E the most astonishing sight of the two weeks' assembly here of theologians and scholars from all the main traditions of Christen- dom was that of the Cardinal Archbishop of Montreal on the same platform as Anglican, Protestant and Orthodox churchmen. Cardinal Leger had also instructed the faithful, through- out Montreal, to pray for the success of this World Conference on Faith and Order, and, at the meeting, combined choirs from Roman and non-Roman churches sang the Lords Prayer together.
'Faith and Order' is the odd name given to the movement amongst churchmen of varying traditions which had its preliminary canter at Lausanne in 1927, and is now properly a part of the World Council of Churches. It has been de- scribed as a gathering of 'theological back-room boys,' professional seminarists, and Biblical experts who enjoy the niceties of verbal debate on the great doctrines of the Christian faith and regard the arena of the Christian Church as their own private exercise ground.
Up to now the traditions of the movement— which in the last forty years has made such significant contributions to Christian unity— have been Anglican and Protestant with a regular mixture of Orthodox churchmen, and its atmo- sphere European and North American. But since the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council the Orthodox Churches have swung into the scene in lively vigour and out of the 350 delegates at Montreal some fifty and more came from fifteen different varieties of the Orthodox Church, including eight from Russia.
Secretly, and by many devious subterfuges, Roman Catholic theologians have been interested in `Faith and Order' for many years. From the sidelines they have participated unofficially in many discussions, since the last meeting in Lund in 1952. But at Montreal the sun shone from Rome itself, and to judge by the number of Roman Catholics present (in addition to the five official observers nominated by the Vatican) it would seem that Rome was a working partner. She is not. Nor is it possible to see how, without compromising her position, she could take part in what is called the `ecumenical dialogue' with churches she cannot recognise as churches.
But as was pointed out at Montreal, we live in an age of ecclesiastical miracles. Only two Popes before Pope John there were heavy warn- ings against Roman Catholics participating in this sort of gathering but today, as the Bishop of Bristol remarked here, it is hard to see how the essential unity of the Christian Church can be discovered in debate, let alone in practice, without the Roman Church being in the arena.
All this raises fine points in ecclesiastical sum- mitry for the World Council of Churches, which is already strongly suspected by the vast body of loosely organised Evangelicals as 'running after Rome' and ardently courting the Orthodox and the Russians. Those charges are open to all sorts of ridiculous and exaggerated variations but they will increase in volume as the tide of ecurnenicity gathers force. This Montreal meeting had before it four reports which had been prepared in various con- sultations over the last ten years. They dealt with 'Christ and the Church,' Institutionalism,' 'Worship' and 'Tradition and Traditions.' Nothing strikingly new or fresh was added to them at Montreal. It was again underlined that the problems connected with the separated churches are not nearly so intractable as they once appeared to be, and that the old contro- versies which once generated heat and anger have died away, but some of the issues they raised have by no means been settled.
There are some comparatively new problems, too, which are subject to many emotional and contemporary pressures. One of them is the question of ordination of women which had a thorough airing in one of the sections at Montreal. The World Council of Churches has been conducting an inquiry on this subject which reveals the wide variety of practices amongst its 200 member churches. One of its conclusions reads: The churches are faced today with the need to discover new forms of ministry to meet situations which did not confront them in the past. It is clear that women as well as men are called to take their place in these new forms of ministry which may differ considerably in form and function from any ministry the church has yet known. It is the duty of the churches to see such forms. In doing so, they may find that the ordination of women is the right re- sponse to new opportunities.
The expected and appropriate blast from the Orthodox Church was delivered in a paper from a professor of the Rumanian Orthodox Church which in a few sentences dismissed the idea of women's ordination—`the ordination, of women is prohibited both by scripture and by the sub- sequent ruling of the church.'
Hanging over the Montreal meeting was the sense of incompetence and failure in Christian communication, in a day when 'traditional language of liturgy and scripture is an alien language and alien thought-form for, most of our contemporaries.' This en tie cawr from the chairman, the Bishop of Bristol, found echoes all round the Assembly. It is perhaps not the task of theologians at the summit to be concerned with how ordinary people may understand them. They speak one to another in a language they have largely created themselves—a kind of theological shorthand which is remarkably effective in intimate debate. Every discipline and every group of experts live and move in their own world of speech forms. But for the Christian Church it is a peculiarly grievous and intolerable problem. Its message must be understood and responded to by the common man.
One wonders whether the massive and miracu- lous quest for church unity, as exhibited ,here, will be a solvent for the communication problem, the most pressing one of our time. If, to adapt a phrase often heard at Montreal, 'the closer you get-the clearer you get,' then there is hope for the theologically illiterate as the churches move towards unity.
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