Two Christian leaders in the past week have warned of division among churches on political and theological lines.

The general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Setri Nyomi, said confusion about their role in the 21st century was dividing Christian churches along political lines in dangerous ways that were hurting their witness,

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the search for Christian unity was at risk because churches no longer agreed about the aim of ecumenism.

Nyomi was delivering the inaugural address on January 28 at the installation of Gregg Mast as president of New Brunswick Theological Seminary, a US institution noted for fostering integration of different races located in New Jersey. Mast is a former president of the Reformed Church in America.

“We live in a world divided between the rich and the poor, a world which has seen much suffering due to poverty, conflicts, natural disasters and violence,” said Ghanaian-born Nyomi.

Many Christians, like the first of their faithful 2,000 years ago, he said, were asking if there was anything in sight to bring an end to such suffering.

“In response to this question,” however noted Nyomi, “churches and Christian communities have allowed themselves to be divided along political lines in very dangerous ways. So we find today Christians identified by their being of the extreme right or the extreme left or somewhere in between.”

Nyomi called for theological schools to be more intentional in building communities where people of different backgrounds could live together, equip students to better deal with the challenges of a broken world and create an openness to engaging in mission across racial and national lines.

The WARC general secretary told his US audience they needed look no further than their own backyard for a place to begin a necessary re-visioning.

“If the American dream is simply to selfishly acquire wealth and measure success in that way, regardless of whether or not access to what it takes to live meaningfully is available to every ethnicity and different groups of people in this nation, then we have to think again,” said the leader of WARC, a grouping of 75 million Reformed Christians in more than 200 churches in about 100 countries.

The Vatican official earlier said churches could make progress if they clearly stated their differences in an honest dialogue.

“If we no longer agree about the aim the danger is that we will go in different, maybe even opposite directions, and will be further apart at the end than we were at the beginning,” Kasper said

“We have become much more aware of the differences over the past decade,” he noted in a speech to a meeting in Rome intended to promote unity between Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Protestant denominations in Europe.

He pointed to developments such as a Roman Catholic statement from 2000, which restated Catholic belief that Protestant denominations “are not churches in the proper sense”. Also Protestants had made statements in which they clearly distanced themselves from Catholic positions, he recalled.

“Such a profile-based ecumenism, as it is called these days, leads to a certain disillusionment but also to greater honesty,” Kasper told the January 24-27 opening event of the 3rd European Ecumenical Assembly.

“It has nothing to do with the onset of an ecumenical ice age or the end of ecumenical dialogue,” he continued. “Only partners that have a clear identity that they know and appreciate can appreciate the stance of others and enter into a serious dialogue and exchange.”

Still, German Lutheran Bishop Margot Kaessmann, in her keynote speech to the gathering, warned that attempts by churches to differentiate themselves from one another weakened their common witness in European society.

“In an age when so many religious currents are flowing into Europe, from Islam to Buddhism, from the esoteric to patchwork religion, Christians’ common witness to their faith needs all the more to be recognisable,” said Kaessmann.

She noted that, “Particularly in facing the great ethical challenges of our time, we should seek common positions” highlighting issues such as biotechnology, assisted suicide, energy policy, and refugees.

The Rome meeting was organised by the Council of European (Roman Catholic)

Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC). The two church groupings between them account for almost all of Europe’s Anglican, Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic churches.

Ecumenical News International

January 30, 2006

http://nsw.uca.org.au/news/2006/christian-divide-warnings_28-01-06.htm