Happy Birthday to the Ecumenical Movement!
2010 marks an important anniversary for the ecumenical movement: the 100th anniversary of the World Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910. The conference, as its name indicates, was called with the intention of working our better cooperation and collaboration in the global mission field. This meeting was still dominated by Europeans and North Americans, and was still a Protestant affair, but nonetheless for its time was one of the largest and religious diverse Christian gatherings in some time.
The Episcopal Church was represented by Charles Henry Brent, missionary bishop to the Philippines, and William Temple, future Archbishop of Canterbury, also was in attendance. Brent, and others, argued that cooperation among Christians was not enough – that what was needed was looking at the theological and ecclesiological differences that divided Christianity as well. This call was taken up, and plans for a Conference on Faith and Order were developed, with Bishop Brent taking a leading role.
Though interrupted by World War II, the Conference on Faith and Order would be held in 1927 with Bishop Brent and the Episcopal Church taking a leading role, and one of the eventual results would be the formation of the World Council of Churches.
The Edinburgh Conference is important because it speaks of the way in which mission and ecumenical dialogue have been intertwined since the beginning of the ecumenical movement. The reason we engage in dialogue with other Christian communions is so the world may believe. In this newsletter we have some links to celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh Conference, and will be giving updates in the coming months.
I encourage us all to keep this anniversary in mind, to participate as able in the regional events, as we discern where God is calling the ecumenical movement for the next hundred years.
