Christian Unity: Beginning Again, Again

The Public Square

Call it a pause or a hiatus or a bump in the road or a dead end. Such are among the ways in which informed parties describe the present moment in what forty years ago was less problematically referred to as “the ecumenical movement.” There is no doubt that the search for a more visible unity among Christians has fallen upon hard times. One result of the Second Vatican Council was that the Catholic Church “entered the ecumenical movement” that is usually dated from the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of 1910. That movement was a mainline/oldline Protestant affair with significant Orthodox participation, and the Catholic Church entered it just as it was beginning to fall apart. Today it appears that the Catholic Church is the only coherent part of the ecumenical movement left. Some go so far as to say that, if there still is an ecumenical movement, it is the Catholic Church.

The state of Christian unity—both its presence and absence—is the concern of an important new initiative called “The Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity,” the product of three years of discussion under the auspices of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, publisher of the distinguished theological journal Pro Ecclesia . The Princeton Proposal is set forth in a little book edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, In One Body Through the Cross (Eerdmans, 62 pages,, $10 paper). The papers prepared for the project are promised in other volumes from Eerdmans. In One Body is part provocation, part plea, and part proposal for action. Faced by the long stall in anything that can believably be described as ecumenical progress, the Princeton Proposal is marked by a certain poignancy. Its architects say they have no idea whether it will achieve anything. It is a matter of casting bread upon the waters. Minimally, the proposal is aimed at generating, or re-generating, a measure of sanctified dissatisfaction with a state of disunity that scandalously contradicts what Christians claim to believe.

The Princeton Proposal is a determinedly unofficial initiative, speaking to but not for the several communions. In this, it is similar to the Groupe des Dombes , founded in 1937, and the more recent “Evangelicals and Catholics Together.” The sixteen signers include two Roman Catholics, two Orthodox, and two evangelical Protestants. The rest are from the Protestant oldline, with almost half of them being Lutheran. So the participants are not, and make no pretense of being, representative of world Christianity. Included, however, are prominent players in the ecumenical efforts of recent decades such as Geoffrey Wainwright, William Rusch, Michael Root, and, primus inter pares , George Lindbeck of Yale. These are people who have been through the turnings and churnings of modern ecumenism; they pioneered breakthroughs, fought on the barricades, and now, in the afterglow of promises failed, are eminently qualified to assess what went wrong and what might be done about it. Attention must be paid the Princeton Proposal.

A Moment Betrayed

The future does not lie with the ecumenical movement dating from Edinburgh 1910 and its related institutions such as the World Council of Churches and, in the U.S., the National Council of Churches. That movement and its institutions have become part of the problem. The editors of In One Body write, “The institutions of conciliar ecumenism are largely captive to a ‘new ecumenical paradigm’ which subordinates the concern of the ‘faith and order’ movement, for the visible unity of Christians, to social and political agendas which are themselves divisive. The wisdom of the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Willem Visser ’t Hooft, ‘The World Council of Churches is either a Christocentric movement or it is nothing at all,’ now carries little weight.” In sum, the WCC and related programs have become the antithesis of the ecumenism they were founded to advance.

The Princeton Proposal is driven by theological concern, and the document admirably sets forth, on the basis of Scripture and sacred tradition, why the quest for visible Christian unity is not optional. Guided by the prayer of the Church’s Lord in John 17, the signers declare that the statement of the 1961 World Council assembly at New Delhi remains “the most adequate and comprehensive description” of the unity that we must seek. New Delhi said:

[This unity] is being made visible as all in each place who are baptized into Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Savior are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages, in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls His people.

That vision is from a very long time ago; we are very far from its realization; and it has been betrayed by the movement that gave it birth. But, says the Princeton Proposal, it remains the vision that frames our hope for the future. In the service of that vision, it is recognized that “some churches and Christian movements have special responsibilities in our time.” The signers then address a specific word to Roman Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and the Orthodox.

If Things Were Not as They Are

Not least because it includes more than half the Christians in the world, the Catholic Church has a “unique role.” “While the papacy is undoubtedly a continuing stumbling block for many, the Bishop of Rome is also the only historical plausible candidate to exercise an effective worldwide ministry of unity.” The Magisterium of the Catholic Church “must teach in a fashion capable of shaping the minds of the faithful beyond those currently in communion with Rome.” It is noted that the Catholic Church has made an “irrevocable” commitment to the quest for Christian unity, and it is proposed that the commitment would be enhanced were non-Catholics more fully consulted in theological deliberations of the Magisterium. “If the Bishop of Rome is to teach for and to all the baptized, he must receive reliable counsel regarding the faith and life of the entire Christian community.” Such a formal arrangement for ongoing consultation would seem to be eminently doable, and, in fact, has been urged by responsible parties in Rome.

As for evangelical and Pentecostal Christians, it is noted that “all churches may benefit from their vitality, their zeal for evangelism, and their commitment to Scripture.” But evangelicals and Pentecostals should, it is urged, give up their separatist ways. “Rather than employing their resources solely to benefit their own fellowship or to call fellow Christians out of their fellowships, they should work for the health of all Christian communities.” Such statements bear the mark of a wan hope that evangelicals and Pentecostals should be other than who they are. With some exceptions, their free-church traditions—grounded in experiential individualism and an ecclesiology of associational voluntarism marked by competitive entrepreneurship—puts them at odds with the vision of Christian unity set forth by New Delhi and the Princeton Proposal.

Equally wan is the word to the Orthodox. The necessary things are said about Orthodoxy’s fidelity to ancient tradition and her riches of liturgy and spirituality. And then this: “Yet, regretfully, the Orthodox churches have clung also to divisive and nationalistic proclivities. These should be abandoned. If that were done, the Orthodox witness would be enhanced, to the great benefit of all Christians.” If that were done. If there were any promising response to John Paul II’s earnest plea in Ut Unum Sint for reconciliation between East and West. If Orthodoxy would abandon its divisive and nationalistic ways, and its penchant for claiming to be, quite simply and without remainder, the Church. If so many things were not as they are. It is no criticism of the Princeton Proposal to say that, in this connection, it might as aptly be called the Princeton Prayer.

Waiting on the Spirit

While the document addresses a special word to Catholics, Orthodox, and evangelicals, it is noteworthy that there is no special word to the mainline/oldline communions. The reason for that is certainly not that the signers think the communions associated with the old “conciliar ecumenism” are doing just fine. Perhaps it is, rather, that they don’t expect much from oldline groups such as the United Methodists, Presbyterians USA, and ELCA Lutherans. The proposal appears to be somewhat ambivalent about various “renewal” and “confessional” movements within such communions. On the one hand, such movements represent a hope for the restoration of theological substance and seriousness. On the other, a strengthened Presbyterian or Wesleyan or Lutheran “identity” could reinforce differences that accent Christian divisions, and thus undermine hope for the unity envisioned by New Delhi. This tension, or perhaps it is a contradiction, is recognized but not resolved in the Princeton Proposal.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has said on several occasions that the way forward toward Christian unity is largely hidden from us. We must, he says, prayerfully await an unforeseeable and unanticipatable intervention of the Holy Spirit. Meanwhile, as John Paul II has repeatedly asserted, the Catholic Church’s commitment to the ecumenical task is indeed “irrevocable.” In season and out of season, whether the interest of others waxes or wanes, the Catholic Church will persist in theological dialogue with everyone, and in exploring every possible opening toward the uncompromisable goal of full communion among all Christians.

Some view that quest as quixotic; for Catholics it is an unavoidable imperative that comes with being-together with all who are baptized and confess Jesus as Lord—the Church. Perhaps in this millennium—which John Paul says must be the millennium of unity as the last was the millennium of divisions—the unanticipatable intervention of the Spirit will come from the explosive growth of Christianity in the southern hemisphere. Nobody knows. We can only try to be prepared. The Princeton Proposal intensifies our dissatisfaction with the disunity that is, and points us toward the unity that, through ways unknowable, may one day be. It is not a road map. It is a call to fidelity, which is where authentic ecumenism begins, and must ever begin again.

Why Aren’t Muslims Like Us?

There is no secret about my great respect for Bernard Lewis. He is one of the wisest guides in trying to understand the history and contemporary perplexities of Islam. (See my extended discussion of his book What Went Wrong? Public Square, May 2002.) The greater, therefore, is the disappointment with his essay in the May 2003 issue of the Atlantic , “I’m Right, You’re Wrong, Go to Hell.” He notes, correctly, that the two expansive and civilization-defining world religions today are Christianity and Islam. Both of them, he says, have a problem with tolerance, never mind mutual respect, toward other religions. That’s because they think they have the final truth revealed by God and everybody else is going to go to hell.

“Other religions,” he writes, “such as Judaism and most of the religions of Asia, concede that human beings may use different religions to speak to God, as they use different languages to speak to one another.” Among Christians, says Lewis, there are triumphalists and relativists, and Lewis is on the side of the relativists. “The triumphalist view is increasingly under attack in Christendom, and is disavowed by significant numbers of Christian clerics. There is little sign as yet of a parallel development in Islam.”

In fact, only a minority of Christians”usually evangelical Protestants of a fundamentalist bent—say that all non-Christians are on their way to hell. Although one can find variant views over the centuries, the Catholic Church, which includes more than half the two billion Christians in the world, emphatically teaches that God denies nobody—Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever—the grace necessary to salvation. While the fullness of the means of salvation is given in the Church and is necessary for those who understand that, nobody is outside the possibility of saving grace. Whether they act on the grace offered by God is another matter. This is not “relativism.” As reiterated in the 1990 encyclical Redemptoris Missio and the 2000 instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus , the teaching is that everyone who is saved is saved through the redemptive work of Christ, whether or not they have ever heard of Christ. One does not expect Bernard Lewis to be an authority on Christian theology, while at the same time one is reminded of the dangers in speaking with confidence on subjects with which one has scant familiarity.

Yet more troubling is the message that Islam, in order to become less of a threat to the world, must relativize its claim to possess the truth. That plays directly into the hands of Muslim rigorists who pose as the defenders of the uncompromised and uncompromisible truth and who call for death to the infidels. If Islam is to become tolerant and respectful of other religions, it must be as the result of a development that comes from within the truth of Islam, not as a result of relativizing or abandoning that truth. Is Islam capable of such a religious development? Nobody knows. But, if the choice is between compromising Islamic truth or a war of civilizations, it is almost certain that the winner among Muslims will be the hard-core Islamism that Lewis rightly views as such a great threat.

Christianity is more, not less, vibrantly Christian as a result of coming to understand more fully the mysterious and loving ways of God in His dealings also with non-Christians. Although the story of this development is complex, the important truth is that tolerance and mutual respect are religious, not secular, achievements. I will say it again: the reason we do not kill one another over our disagreements about the will of God is that we believe it is against the will of God to kill one another over our disagreements about the will of God. Christians have come to believe that. We must hope that more and more Muslims will come to believe that. That will not happen, however, if they are told that coming to believe that will make them less faithful Muslims. Or, as Bernard Lewis puts it, that they become relativists.

The Conservatism of Andrew Sullivan

“As a simple empirical matter, we are all sodomites now, but only homosexuals bear the burden of the legal and social stigma.” Thus says Andrew Sullivan in a long article in the New Republic occasioned by the Texas law against sodomy now before the Supreme Court. As he has done many times before, Mr. Sullivan presents himself as a Catholic who is trying to help the Church update its antiquated views on human sexuality. And again he misrepresents, and then triumphantly rebuts, a crazy-quilt of arguments which he attributes to Aquinas and other worthies, including contemporary natural law theorists. Finally, for Mr. Sullivan, what is “natural” is what people actually do, and what people actually do sexually should not be censured so long as it is “private, adult, and consensual.” Most people do not adhere to the Church’s teaching that the sexual act is rightly ordered within the unitive and procreative bond of marriage. People do all kinds of disordered and downright kinky things and therefore are, says Mr. Sullivan, de facto sodomites. Here, as Mr. Sullivan is given to saying, is the money quote:

“It is hard to see why . . . sexual pleasure, fantasy, and escape are somehow inimical to human flourishing—and there’s plenty of evidence that their permanent or too-rigid suppression does actual psychological and spiritual harm. Relationships that include sexual adventure and passion and experimentation are not relationships of ‘disintegrated’ people but relationships in which trust is the prerequisite for relief, release, and renewal. The meaning of these sexual experiences is as varied as the people in them. And there are many contexts in which to understand these sexual experiences other than as purely procreative. You can think of sex—within marriage and in other relationships—as a form of bonding; as a way to deepen and expand the meaning of intimacy; as a type of language even, where human beings can communicate subtly, beautifully, passionately, without words. And, in a world where our consumer needs are exquisitely matched by markets, in which bourgeois comfort can almost anesthetize a sense of human risk and adventure, sex remains one of the few realms left where we can explore our deepest longings, where we can travel to destinations whose meaning and dimensions we cannot fully know. It liberates and exhilarates in ways few other experiences still can. Yes, taking this to extremes can be destructive. And yes, if this experience trumps or overwhelms other concerns—the vows of marriage, the trust of a faithful relationship, the duty we bear to children—then it can be a social harm. But the idea that expressing this human freedom is somehow intrinsically and always immoral, that it somehow destroys the soul, is an idea whose validity is simply denied in countless lives and loves.”

A Matter of Taste

Mr. Sullivan, who is a conservative on some matters, is, in principle if not in disposition, a sexual libertine. This is disguised from some by his sleight of hand in contending that “gay marriage” would bring homosexual excesses under the domesticating influence of a conventional institution. But he leaves no doubt that such unions are but one of innumerable choices homosexuals might make in the pursuit of “sexual adventure and passion and experimentation.” He allows that “taking this to extremes can be destructive,” but who is to say what is extreme, especially if such adventure is private, adult, and consensual? Answering that question was exactly the project of Michel Foucault with his “limit experiences” in the bathhouses of San Francisco before he died of AIDS. The above statement by Sullivan could as well have been made by Norman O. Brown in his defense of the unbridled libido, which he marketed as “polymorphous perversity.” Mr. Sullivan likely deems the positions of such as Foucault and Brown to be extreme, meaning that they are not to his taste, although he has written elsewhere about the erotic charms of anonymous sex with strangers.

A couple of months ago a major Catholic university held a symposium on “the reconstruction of Catholic sexual ethics,” and invited me to debate Andrew Sullivan. I declined. Mr. Sullivan has no interest whatever in reconstructing a Catholic sexual ethic, or any other kind of ethic that might propose constraints or moral orderings on the satisfaction of sexual desires, apart from a few narrowly defined causes of possible “social harm.” The meaning—including moral meaning—of sexual relationships “is as varied as the people in them.” That some things might be right or wrong “is an idea whose validity is simply denied in countless lives and loves” of people who have persuaded themselves that their ways of pursuing adventure, passion, and experimentation is right for them. Mr. Sullivan knows that living in defiance of Christian morality does not imperil the soul—nothing “destroys” the soul—because his soul and the souls of others who do likewise are in such great shape. Such is the perfect circularity of moral solipsism.

Mr. Sullivan is a self-declared sodomite. In his writing about his own proclivities and practices, he presents himself as a conservative sodomite. Manifestly uneasy about being a bad Catholic, he does not, like other bad Catholics, confess his sin, but writes endlessly about why the Church is wrong and he is right about what he and others do. Perhaps sensing that he is not getting much of anywhere with that argument, he resorts to declaring, “We are all sodomites now.” The discerning reader will recognize that as the tu quoque defense (You’re one, too), the last refuge of the defender of the indefensible.

What Sacred Architecture Is For

Good. Somebody has said it and said it well. So, with no further ado, I will let Duncan Stroik, editor of Sacred Architecture , say it: “Everywhere I went in Italy last summer, save the eternal city, churches were asking an admission fee. The explanation was given that it costs a lot to maintain these buildings and keep them open and so it should be the responsibility of everyone who uses them to help pay for their upkeep. If this seems like a reasonable request, it is also a major contradiction with the purpose of a church. In Florence, charging for admissions started with the baptistery and the museum of the duomo—a nuisance that did not prevent visits or prayer in the church proper. Then it spread to the Brancacci chapel by Massacio, the New Sacristy by Michelangelo, and the burial chapel of the Medicis at the parish church of San Lorenzo. More recently San Lorenzo itself and the Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella have begun charging entrance fees. And while these churches only allow paying customers during the week, at the Franciscan church of Santa Croce an equally problematic attitude is exhibited: people are not allowed to enter on Sunday morning unless they are going to mass. These are churches which every tour group, pilgrimage group, art and architecture class should stop off to see, to draw, to visit, and to pray in. Now many will not make the visit, given time and money. Even worse, and more detrimental to the sacred character of the buildings, they will no longer be places for the faithful of the city. Without the love, care, and affection of the nonnas, the youth on their way to class, the workers on a break, and other faithful, these buildings will become simply museums. Florence, they say, is a city of museums and now ever more so.

“Venice also is so full of art and architecture and so lacking in permanent residents that tourists seem to take over. In Venice the Chorus foundation was formed by the Archdiocese in order to restore some of their magnificent churches and their sacred art. A worthwhile task, but it also means that fourteen of the major churches including the Frari and the Redentore are entrance by admission only. There are several benefits of this, of course: the buildings stay clean, unwanted beggars and graduate students are kept out, and all art lovers are protected from the distraction of people kneeling, praying, and lighting candles. Pay-per-view religion is a very contemporary idea and offers a new way to charge for indulgences. Now, it is also true that most of these churches are open for ‘free’ during one daily mass, and paid staff ensure that visitors participate in the liturgy and are prevented from looking at artwork or visiting side chapels. That should be done during normal business hours. We can be sure that Veronese, Bellini, Palladio, and Longhena would be surprised to know that Third Millennium Man believes he can separate faith and art. Other churches such as Santa Maria dei Miracoli, having lost their parishioners or religious congregations, have dispensed with the daily or weekly mass altogether and have become galleries of sacred art, with the occasional Vivaldi concert or upper-class wedding.

A Disconnect Between Faith and Art

“What a lost opportunity. Here are buildings constructed by the faithful and the finest artists and architects throughout the centuries, more beautiful than ever but not really serving their highest purpose: the praise of God and the bestowal of grace on men. Catholic art, along with the rich tradition of sacred music, continues to speak to people of differing cultural and religious backgrounds. Is this not an opportunity to be hospitable, to welcome the saint, the sinner, and the prodigal? Is not the cost of keeping our churches open, offering the liturgy, and reserving the Eucharist a price the Church can afford, no matter the monetary price?

“These developments bode poorly for the Church in Italy, and for Catholics everywhere. They signal the acceptance of the disconnection between faith and art for modern man, which during the past two centuries has been advocated by the avant garde. The separation of worship and devotion from beauty and art is schizophrenic for a Church that believes in the necessity of sacrament. I am sure that many tourists will get used to paying for church, while the faithful on pilgrimage or tour should be scandalized. ‘But we only want to go in to pray at the tomb of Saint (Francis, Monica, Ignatius, Thérèse, etc.) or see the miraculous image.’ ‘I am sorry but you will have to either pay the admission price or come back on Sunday.’” (Sacred Architecture is published semiannually. Subscribe for $9.95 by writing P.O. Box 556, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556.)

Renewal Deferred

Heroic is the word for the labors of Dorothy Rabinowitz in exposing the mad frenzy of accusations against child care workers and others in the 1980s and 1990s. Across the country, people were arrested, tried, and in many cases jailed on allegations of mass rapes, satanic rituals, and other bizarre practices. Zealous prosecutors claimed to be stamping out an epidemic of abuse, child-abuse experts coached and coerced young children to tell tall tales, psychologists peddled fantastic theories to juries, and judges caved in to pressures to “protect the children.” In a particularly egregious instance of 1995, more than forty residents of Wenatchee, Washington, were arrested on fake charges of, among other things, ritually raping children at their church.

Thanks in large part to Rabinowitz’s relentless reporting, mainly in the Wall Street Journal, the panic was exposed, charges were dropped, sentences were reversed, and most, but not all, of the convicted have been released from jail. Now Rabinowitz has brought the pieces of the story together in a chilling book, No Crueler Tyrannies: Accusation, False Witness, and Other Terrors of Our Times (Free Press, $25). The reviewer in the New York Times writes: “Rabinowitz has been a proud and sometimes lonely crusader. Her book, even with its gaps in perspective and context, makes for enraging reading.” That may be a typo. Perhaps the reviewer meant “engaging” reading. But enraging will do. The reviewer thinks Rabinowitz is somewhat too one-sided, however. She writes, “After all, there are charges of sex abuse that prove to be true—just look at the scandal that has overtaken the Roman Catholic Church.”

Back to the Long Lent

At this point I segue into a further reflection on our Long Lent that began in January of last year. Yes, there are, sad to say, some cases of priestly sex abuse that have been proved to be true in a court of law or have been admitted by perpetrators. But, thanks to the scandalous policy adopted by the bishops at Dallas last June, there are today hundreds of priests who have been suspended from ministry and have had their names publicly smeared without proof or even credible evidence. They protest their innocence, but to be accused is, for all practical purposes, to be deemed guilty. So eager are the bishops to protect the children, their diocesan purse, and their own public image. Protecting all three, and especially the children, is imperative. But what about the grave injustice to innocent priests? I know it is unpopular to even raise the question. Many bishops and enraged lay people respond that the injustice is regrettable, but it is the price to be paid.

That is a response unworthy of Christians. It is evasive, it is scapegoating, it is an abdication of moral responsibility. I am not sure why I bother writing about this. Unlike the efforts of Dorothy Rabinowitz, it is not likely to change anything. The Dallas policy, with a few modifications by Rome, is set in concrete. There will be more embarrassing headlines, notably from Los Angeles, but the fevered pitch of national scandal has subsided and is not likely to be reignited. The bishops, for the most part, got themselves off the hook. The Boston Globe got its Pulitzer Prize. It’s back to business as usual. Renewal can wait for another day. Along the way, the Church has, in crucial respects, sacrificed to the state the right to govern itself. On a massive scale, trust has been violated, confidences broken, and reputations destroyed. Throughout it all, the gospel of sin and grace, repentance and restoration, went unspoken and undone.

Perhaps, in time, some good priests falsely accused will be returned to the ministry to which they were called by Christ and his Church. Maybe the National Review Board, the bishops’ institutionalized admission that they cannot be trusted, will come up with something pointing toward genuine reform. The promised Vatican statement on the inadmissibility of homosexuals to the priesthood is, according to some reports, still on track. Certainly the sexual abuse of teenage boys—which is what the scandal is mainly about—will not be treated cavalierly as it often was in the past, and that is a great gain.

But faithful Catholics beyond numbering view their bishops very differently now. The strange thing is that it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Boston excepted, at the parish level life goes on, and there are even many reports of increased participation and giving. It is finally the Mass that holds the Catholic Church together, which is to say it is Christ in his promised presence. Reports of catastrophe and calls for renewal notwithstanding, the Church remains a community of sinners. Forgiven sinners called to be saints, to be sure, but sinners nonetheless. So it has always been and so it will be to the end of time, and for that we must be immeasurably grateful. And yet, I trust it is not ingratitude to remember that, out of the Long Lent, some of us had hoped for something more from the leaders that, for reasons He only knows, God has given us. Perhaps the unsatisfactory outcome of this unhappy time is a salutary reminder that genuine reform and renewal has to begin with each one of us. I apologize for a conclusion that limps out on a truism, but the good thing about truisms is that they are true.

While We’re At It

• Conservative media critics are very down on CNN for its biased reporting on, among many other things, the Iraq war. I don’t watch enough television to have an i