Abstract
This article attends to ecumenicity as the second reformation. The ecumenical organisations and agencies hugely influenced the theological praxis and reflection of the church during the past century. The First World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has been described as the most significant event in church history since the Reformation during the past decade. We saw the emergence of two initiatives that are going to influence ecumenical theology and practice in future, namely the Receptive Ecumenism and Catholic Learning research project, based in Durham, United Kingdom, and the International Theological Colloquium for Transformative Ecumenism of the WCC. Both initiatives constitute a fresh approach in methodology to ecumenical theology and practice. Attention will be given in this article to conciliar ecumenism, receptive ecumenism, transformative ecumenism and its implications for the development of an African transformative receptive ecumenism. In doing so, we should take cognisance of what Küng says about a confessionalist ghetto mentality: ‘We must avoid a confessionalistic ghetto mentality. Instead we should espouse an ecumenical vision that takes into consideration the world religions as well as contemporary ideologies: as much tolerance as possible toward those things outside the Church, toward the religious in general, and the human in general, and the development of that which is specifically Christian belong together!’
Highlights
It seems as if the ecumenical movement is in deep crisis
Cardinal Walter Kasper, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Church Unity (2001–2010), build further on the notion of an ecumenical winter. He made reference to ‘a spirit of resignation’ or ‘a phase of hibernation’ in current ecumenism. He categorically states that the ecumenical enthusiasm of the decade after the Second Vatican Council has gone, and many people are disappointed and ask: ‘Does it still make sense to engage in this issue? Can we ever make substantial progress and reach the goal of visible unity? Is this not an unrealistic dream and a useless utopia? Is ecumenism perhaps a dead relic of the Second Vatican Council?’ (Kasper 2011:13)
Cardinal Kasper’s presumption is that receptive ecumenism and the call to Catholic learning will contribute to a new start and hopefully a new spring within the ecumenical movement (Timmer 2014)
Summary
It seems as if the ecumenical movement is in deep crisis. Sarah Timmer (2014) indicated in her groundbreaking dissertation, Ecumenism and Justification: Roman Catholic and Reformed Doctrine in Contemporary Context, that in the 1960s Hans Küng expressed what he believed was a widely held growing impatience with the lack of real change in the Church in spite of the work of the ecumenical movement. According to Kasper, the ecumenical developments of the 20th century were valued in the Catholic Church long before the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) officially took part in the movement (Kasper 2005).
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