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Theological Forum

Vol. XXIII, No. 4, December 1995

Current Perspective

Pierre Rossouw

THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF

ECUMENICITY

A scrutinizing of the agendas of ecumenical bodies, interchurch dialogues and of churches enroute to possible unification delivers a diversity of impressions. The financial costs involved are immense. The man-hours spent cannot be calculated.

Despite all the endeavour and enthusiasm a clarion call must be made towards the urgent necessity of stock-taking. Is an accountable clarity on the priority of accents self-evident? To what degree are agendas and projects merely a result and a continuation of the past? Should and ought the priorities of the past necessarily be pursued? Can the appropriation of funds and manpower in the interests of so much organisation in the midst of endemic secularism and fundamentalism really be justified? How much investigation is launched on the quality, the effectiveness and the relevance of communication within ecumenical bodies and churches? How clear is the present view on the primary task of churches separately and in conjunction with ecumenical bodies?

Let us remind ourselves of the famous story about William Wilberforce and the woman who went to him at the height of his campaign against slavery. She said: Mr. Wilberforce, what about the soul? He answered: Madam, I had almost forgotten that I had a soul (and he could have added that the slaves also have souls). Are we not likewise too readily neglecting the depth dimension of ecumenicity?

The question today for every nook and cranny of ecumenical activity is: how often is it forgotten, even neglected, that the cross of Jesus did not stand in the privatissimum of the individual and personal terrain, nor in the sanctissimum of the purely religious, but outside in the world?

To accomplish the implications of this OUTSIDE, the primary task of the churches, separately and in conjunction with one another, is the preaching of the Word of God and the equipping of all believers to apply the principles of the kingdom of God in all spheres of life.

The searching question is: how much does ecumenicity with all its efforts and costs contribute to the vital precondition of a sound spirituality, especially at grass-roots level?

Little attention, if any at all, is given to the attitudes behind the non-theological factors playing such a key role in both present and future church relationships.

Much is heard about the ecclesia semper reformanda fermenting a societas semper reformanda, of social and structural injustice, human rights and responsibilities, peace, order, violence and church unity.

Nevertheless, there are obvious warning lights that ecumenicity should revisit itself to ascertain on the one hand the quality of and the devotion to the foundational dimension of biblical spirituality, and, on the other hand, the real standing of the FIRST in the answer to question 55 of the Heidelberg Catechism on the communion of the saints: that all and every one who believes, being members of Christ, are in common partakers of Him, and of all His riches and gifts.

To what extent does all the ecumenical activity enhance this FIRST?