| WASHINGTON —
Organizers of a fledgling coalition of evangelical, Catholic,
mainline Protestant and Orthodox Christians said the group should
be up and running by May 2005 — the first time most U.S.
Christians have come together around a common table.
The new group, Christian Churches Together in the USA, will
bring together Christian bodies that for a half-century have not
been able to overcome deep theological and political differences.
“Never before in the history of the United States has
this broad and widely representative group of churches come together
in this way,” said a statement issued following a Jan. 7-9
meeting of more than 50 church leaders at a conference center
outside Houston. The Presbyterian Church (USA) was represented
at the talks by the Rev. Carlos Malave, associate for ecumenical
relations in the Office of the General Assembly.
It was the fourth time the group had met since talks began in
Baltimore in September 2001.
“It gave everyone there more of a sense that this really
could happen and that this really should happen,” said the
Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed
Church in America and chairman of the group’s 15-member
steering committee.
The group would be comprised of representatives from five church
“families” — Roman Catholic, evangelical/Pentecostal,
historic (mainline) Protestant, racial/ethnic churches and Orthodox.
Officials said they expect to have the required 25-member communions
representing all five “families” on board by next
spring. Participants at the Texas meeting “identified and
achieved consensus on all major issues” for the group’s
structure.
Granberg-Michaelson said the body would have a “very,
very minimal infrastructure” with a skeleton staff. “People
don’t want to set up another bureaucracy,” he said.
The nation’s Catholic bishops, whose endorsement is key
to the group’s viability, were presented with a membership
proposal last fall and are expected to consider joining at their
annual meeting next November.
Missing from the new group, however, appears to be the nation’s
largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention,
who sent observers to last year’s meeting but did not participate
in the Houston meeting.
Southern Baptists have typically been reluctant to join ecumenical
groups — they have never joined the 36-member National Council
of Churches — and appear on the verge of withdrawing from
the Baptist World Alliance.
“They are very welcome,” said Ron Sider, president
of Evangelicals for Social Action, who has worked as a liaison
to wary evangelical groups. “There was no indication in
terms of participation that the Southern Baptists were engaged.”
Roman Catholic Bishop Tod Brown of Orange, CA, an early supporter
of CCTUSA, said, “I wish they would be present, but I don’t
think their absence negates the organization.”
Mormons, one of the nation’s fastest-growing religious
groups, also are not likely to participate because of deep doctrinal
differences. CCTUSA participants would have to agree by consensus
to admit new members.
Officials hope to attract more interest from historically black
churches that have been willing to join ecumenical groups but
traditionally have taken a less active role.
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve been in conversation
with them,” Granberg-Michaelson said. “In the next
year we want to deepen that engagement. We see that as a challenge.”
Leaders were careful to lower expectations on what the group
could accomplish, given deep differences in individual polity,
doctrinal beliefs and a history of frosty relations between some
groups.
The first step, Sider said, is for groups to simply get better
acquainted, and find ways to work together. But do not expect
policy statements or press releases on hot-button social issues,
he said.
“It’s right that we will, in the early period, not
be doing any significant activities in the area of outreach beyond
the church,” he said.
Several topics that could be addressed, however, include global
poverty, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Christian-Muslim relations, the
rise of Latino populations in all churches and the needs of Christian
churches in the growing South, officials said.
“There’s also pornography,” Brown said, “but
that’s not on everyone’s list.” |
