Evangelisation and ecumenism: Contradiction or challenge?*

Abstract

The greatest stumbling-block to ecumenism is not the World Council of Churches in Geneva, nor the Moscow Patriarchate, nor the Vatican, as many still believe, but the concept of ecumenism itself. For according to the frequently-cited statement issued by the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Rolle in 1951 ecumenism is 'the whole task of the whole church to bring the Gospel to the whole world'.' Ecumenism is thus an attribute of the church; namely, the catholicity with which it addresses the whole world with the full Gospel. Without this attribute there can be no church, nor can there ever have been. It is thus articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae: a nonecumenical church in this sense would not be a true church, but a sect. Ecumenism and mission, evangelisation and church community converge in a common witness to the same God and Father of Israel and Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit, for no church can claim God exclusively for its own, and all churches can be traced back through the ages to the same Christ. However, from the very beginning this task of universal evangelisation and ecumenism took shape in separate, local communities: Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Rome. Similarly, the four Gospels emerged from different cultural contexts, but they all bring the same message from and about Jesus Christ. Within the ecumenical movement inculturation of local groups and parishes and their orientation towards universal catholicity and complete faithfulness to the Gospel takes the form of brotherly, conciliar consultation (c.f. Acts 15, the council of the Apostles in Jerusalem). Throughout history the one church of Jesus Christ has been formed from all nations according to 'the great commission' in Matthew 28: 19-20: