Deuteronomy 6:4; Psalm 133:1; Romans 3:30; John 17:21

Rev. Theodore A. Gill, Jr.
Committee on Ecumenical Relations,
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Presbyterian Center chapel,
Louisville, Kentucky
March 1, 2002

Fifteen years ago, an article appeared in Presbyterian Survey magazine by the late and greatly lamented theologian Robert McAfee Brown. He took as his title "I Am Presbyterian - Therefore I Am Ecumenical," and in that article he made the argument that "to be ecumenical is as Presbyterian as predestination." He tested this thesis against what he described as the three most common understandings of ecumenism: a commitment to Christian unity, a commitment to God's mission, and a commitment to meeting the real needs of people throughout the whole inhabited earth. This triad - unity, mission, and real-world service - is reminiscent of an early motto of the ecumenical movement that grew out of a 1938 conference in Tambaram, India convened on the eve of World War II. Today, we might call this slogan a "vision statement" for the ecumenical movement:

"The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World."

The centerpiece of that phrase is the word "gospel," for the good news of Jesus Christ is both the presupposition behind the Church and the hope of the world.
The good news of God's love for us revealed in Jesus Christ was also the motivating force behind each of the various streams that have come together in the modern ecumenical movement: Mission and Evangelism, Faith and Order, Life and Work (or "Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation"), Christian Education (the former "Sunday School movement"), and a worldwide network of church- and mission-related communications. Each of these facets of ecumenism began as a movement in its own right, yet it is the tendency of movements to become institutions and thereby to lose their forward momentum. Over time, any institutional expression of the Church finds it harder and harder to overcome the rigidity of its own structures and to take the gospel out into the world.

Six weeks ago, a new movement was inaugurated in Memphis, Tennessee: Churches Uniting in Christ, or "C.U.I.C." For many years, this coalition of churches looked as though it might be brought to birth with all the trappings of a ready-built institutional structure; as it turned out, members of some of the participating churches rebelled at this approach, and C.U.I.C. has come into being without clearly defined councils, officers, or procedure manuals. What it has instead is a clear recognition among the ten participating communions that they are united in faith, sacraments, mission, and continuing theological dialogue on ministry, acting together as interdependent members of the one body of Christ. C.U.I.C. emphasizes commitment to combat racism in the United States as a top priority in its common witness.

Long before C.U.I.C. - and even before its predecessor organization, the Consultation on Church Union - the idea behind this movement germinated in a sermon by the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, the late Eugene Carson Blake. His 1960 sermon at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco was titled "A Proposal Toward the Unity of Christ's Church." In it, Dr. Blake suggested that American Presbyterians and Episcopalians invite any other interested communions to join them in the quest for a reunited Church that would be at once "truly catholic and truly reformed."

According to Gene Blake, such a Church would be "truly catholic" in that (a) it would have visible historical continuity with the Church of all ages before and after the Reformation; (b) it would confess the Trinitarian faith of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds; and (c) it would fully share in the two dominical sacraments, Baptism and the Eucharist. A reunited Church would be "truly reformed" in that (a) it would accept the principle of continually being reformed according to the Word of God, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; (b) it would be thoroughly democratic in its government; (c) it would recapture the sense of the priesthood of believers, a priesthood that includes both ordained ministers and all other members; and (d) it would, in Blake's words, "find the way to include within its catholicity (and because of it) a wide diversity of theological formulation of the faith and a variety of worship and liturgy including worship that is non-liturgical."
Eugene Carson Blake intended "truly catholic and truly reformed" as the marks of a reunited Church. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Consultation on Church Union. A whole lot of Methodists became involved: CMEs, AMEZs, AMEs, and the newly "United Methodists" made up of former MEs and former EUBs. Then some Christian Church-Disciples of Christ showed up. There was also that other new merger, a marvelous mix of traditions known as the United Church of Christ. And still others came along for whom it was equally important that a new movement toward unity be intrinsically evangelical. And so… for forty years, the Consultation sought a Church that was "truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed."
"Evangelion," the New Testament Greek word for gospel, is the root of the English term evangelical. So, as in the motto "The Whole Church Taking the Whole Gospel to the Whole World," a uniting Church that sees itself as "truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed" puts the gospel at the center of its vision.

Based on the examples of the Tambaram motto of 1938, and C.U.I.C.'s ideal of a reunited Church that is "truly evangelical," I would like to propose an argument along the lines of Robert McAfee Brown's, but this time with the following thesis: "I Am Ecumenical; Therefore, I Am Evangelical."

"To some this statement reeks of illogic" (as Brown said in his opening line). While modern ecumenism and Protestant evangelicalism share many of the same roots, the movements and institutions associated with both their names have diverged dramatically since the late nineteenth century. The current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, proudly evangelical, has boasted that there is "not an ecumenical bone" in his body. I suspect that there are more than a few of us "ecumaniacs" who are regularly tempted to claim that there is not an "Evangelical" bone in ours.

But consider the definiton of "evangelical" from the 1984 consensus document of the Consultation on Church Union. What does it mean to be evangelical? It means that we know Jesus Christ as both the bearer and the content of the good news we are called to proclaim, and we encourage others to enter a personal relationship with him. It means that Holy Scripture has authority over our lives. It means that we believe the Holy Spirit renews God's people through manifestations of the gospel in the Church's life. And it means that we recognize how God's mission to the world through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit has become the evangelical mission of the Church. In the words of the Consultation, "The mandate for mission is for the whole Church, in every place, by every member… that all people and nations may hear the gospel and respond by faith in Jesus Christ as the incarnate, serving, crucified, risen, and exalted Lord, and may know the transforming power of Christ in their individual and common lives."

In elaborating on biblical faith, the Consultation's consensus insists that "The Scriptures are the normative authority for knowledge of Jesus Christ and of God's dealings with the people of Israel and the Church… [I]llumined by the Holy Spirit, …[t]he Church lives by the promises of God in the Bible and stands under God's judgment and discipline."

Well… At the heart of the Hebrew Bible, there is a confession of faith: "Sh'maa Yisrael, Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad" - "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one," and then it teaches us to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. When Jesus was asked to name the greatest commandment of the Law, this was the one he lifted up.

And Paul, instructing the Roman church on no less important a point of doctrine than justification by grace through faith, alluded to that same Hebrew verse, calling for unity among Jews and Gentiles: "Because God is one" - because one and the same God justifies both Jew and Gentile - all believers, whatever their backgrounds, are justified through faith in the one Lord.

And again, there is our gospel text from the High Priestly prayer of Jesus. In the Fourth Gospel, this prayer comes at the end of the so-called Farewell Discourses that form a sort of last will and testament addressed to the Church. Jesus calls on us to wash one another's feet, to love one another, to trust that in his Father's house there are many mansions and that he goes to prepare a place for us. He promises the coming of an Advocate who will reveal God's truth and provide support for believers in the midst of a hostile world.

At the conclusion of these discourses, Jesus prays for his disciples and for those who will believe because of them. He prays that we may be one, just as the Lord our God (Adonai Elohenu) is one (Adonai Echad). He prays that our display of unity may cause the people around us to believe that Jesus was sent into the world because God loved it so. His words echo John 3:16 as well as John 13:35, an exhortation early in the Farewell Discourses: "If you love one another, then the world will know that you are my disciples."

In praying that we may be one, as he and the Father are one, Jesus invites us into the bond of love that brings unity to the Trinity itself. As the Triune God is one, and loving, so are meant to be all of those who hear and heed the gospel. It is through God's love that we are called… called to be one; called to proclaim the good news to others; called to bear one another's burdens; called to confront idolatry in church and world; called, as Lew Mudge says, to "a solidarity of humanness in opposition to systemic oppression"; called to combat racism; called to common ministry; called to kick off the institutional encumbrances that limit us; called once more to join the movement of the Spirit; called to embrace as our brothers and sisters not only the Third World ecumenists whom we have not seen, but the American evangelicals whom we have seen.
We are called to be ecumenical Christians; and, therefore, we are called to be evangelical.

Let us pray:
Teach us, Triune God, that like justification, unity is not of our making.
Help us to accept it as your gift. Make us one people, as you are one Lord,
so that the world may recognize your glory shining in the face of Jesus
and, believing, may have life in his name. Amen.