Finding bilateral agreement: the rules of the game

Ecumenical Review, The, July, 2003 by Oliver Schuegraf

"The ecumenical movement is in a severe crisis. The impetus of the early years has given way to frustration." One hears assessments like this quite often these days.

Yet the lack of progress towards unity (1) is certainly not the result of any lack of consensus documents. On the contrary, the number of documents drawn up by bilateral dialogue commissions is immense. However, these have not often been followed up by progress in common life between the churches participating in the dialogues. Even if a far-reaching agreement on doctrinal questions is achieved, this does not automatically lead to a rapprochement in sacramental life or to church fellowship. Why not?

For one thing, the reality of the life of the churches is far wider than their theological struggles. Emotional attachments and reservations, strongly held habits and demarcations, but also the ways of communicating with one another, which may be shaped by respect or hubris and thus evoke trust or suspicion--all these are realities that can influence the readiness for real rapprochement and thus hinder solutions to the theological controversies still blocking the way to unity. Academic research will not be able to do away with these underlying attitudes.

There is, however, another cause for the unfruitfulness of interchurch agreements. Here some more thorough reflection may help to advance the search for unity. I am talking about the "'rules of the game" for reaching agreement. The formal framework of dialogue can become just as important a factor as the content of dialogue. A dialogue might start with the question: "'How can we reach an agreement about our theological differences, and how will we be able to express it?" This starting point may lead--not least in hindsight--to other, related questions: "Against which authoritative criteria is the agreement to be measured?" "Does the agreement have the same importance for both sides?" "Is there mutual understanding about the consequences the agreement will imply?" "What are the rules by which the rapprochement or even the growth into communion of two denominations may proceed?" All these questions may seem to be of secondary importance compared to those about theological content, but they have in fact turned out to be some of the central problems of the movement towards Christian unity. Even the most comprehensive agreement will not help if there are different understandings of its importance and of the consequences it entails.

The ecumenical movement needs to become more deeply self-conscious. Its interest in itself has to grow. More than this, it has to become conscious of its own structures and rules, its formal framework, because reflection on the structures within which Christians work on the analysis of their common faith involves a wealth of implications for its theological content. In essence, this reflection involves the key ecclesiological questions. I therefore propose to set out a sketch of the formal framework for agreement that is--in my opinion--a precondition for the success of bilateral talks between denominations, even though it has to date been considered far too seldom.

Agreement about "is" and "ought"

Does a dialogue report present descriptive or prescriptive statements about the church? The Old Catholic--Orthodox conversations (2) show that this simple formal question needs to be clarified. The bilateral expositions about the holiness and apostolicity of the church are rather triumphalist in tone, yet the churches' actual condition is not considered at all. The mutually accepted section on the theology of the sacraments does not correspond with the actual sacramental practice in either church. In Amersfoort (1985), for example, both parties agree that, according to the received tradition of the early church, confirmation was administered directly after baptism and that since that time infants have been admitted to the eucharist. (3) These procedures, however, are not present practice in the Union of Utrecht. Thus positions are described that are seen by the dialogue partners to be desirable, yet are by no means fully consistent with the reality within the churches. What does this imply for the strived-for community, and for the value of the agreement, if both parties agree on what "ought" to be the case in the una sancta, yet take no account of what "is" the case in the respective churches? Here is surely one of the basic reasons for the ineffectiveness of so many bilateral agreements.

The drawing of careful distinctions between the descriptive and prescriptive level is also essential at another level. In the past one's own church was often described--whether deliberately or unthinkingly--in terms of an ideal state of affairs whereas others were judged by their actual life with all its shortcomings. Such a comparison is not only dishonest but also illogical. Many long-fostered accusations will be rendered invalid once the need to compare theory with theory, and practice with practice, is accepted.