Generous Orthodoxies

Essays on the History and Future of Ecumenical Theology

Paul Silas Peterson

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532618888, 9781498244749
• eBook ISBN: 9781498244732
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

After the birth of the Protestant ecumenical movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and following the first great wave of universal Christian ecumenism in the 1960s and 1970s after the Second Vatican Council, prominent theologians of nearly every ecclesial tradition charted new territory in the last decades of the twentieth century. They crossed boundaries within their own ecclesial traditions and built bridges to other Christian churches--churches that were once excluded from fellowship. In the development of these new programs of ecumenical theology, the theologians redefined their own confessional identities and, in many cases, crossed the liberal-conservative divide within their own traditions. This volume introduces this fascinating dynamic of theological mediation, redefinition, and generosity. It shows how the ecumenical impulses, which were directed outwardly to other traditions, had reflexive effects inwardly. Working in the realms of both historical and systematic theology, the essays in this volume provide a critical analysis of the history of this general theological sentiment and offer an outlook for its future.Contributors Brian D. McLaren, ForewordPaul Silas Peterson, IntroductionPart One: Ecumenical reform theologiesAndrew Meszaros, Yves Congar: The Birth of "Catholic Ecumenism"Matthew L. Becker, Edmund Schlink: Ecumenical TheologyDorothea Sattler, Otto Hermann Pesch: Ecumenical ScholasticismRonald T. Michener, George Lindbeck: Ecumenical Unity through Ecclesial ParticularityNikolaos Asproulis, John D. Zizioulas: A Pioneer of Ecumenical Dialogue and Christian UnityPart Two: Overcoming liberal-conservative polaritiesBen Fulford, Hans Frei: Beyond Liberal and Conservative Friederike Nussel, Wolfhart Pannenberg: Liberal OrthodoxyJay T. Smith, Stanley J. Grenz: The Evangelical Turn to Postliberal Theological MethodPart Three: Boundary crossings in philosophical, systematic and ethical theologyWilliam E. Myatt, David Tracy: Difference, Unity, and the Analogical ImaginationChristophe Chalamet, Robert Jenson: God's Way and the Ways of the ChurchVictoria Lorrimar, Stanley Hauerwas: Witnessing Communities of CharacterChristine M. Helmer, Marilyn McCord Adams: Philosophy, Theology, and PrayerPart Four: Ecumenical theology todayWolfgang Vonday, Pentecostalism and Christian Orthodoxy: Revision, Revival, and RenewalJohanna Rahner, Shifting Paradigms - Future Ecumenical ChallengesMichael Amaladoss, Theology today in India: Ecumenical or interreligious?Bernd Oberdorfer, Next Steps - and Visions? Lutheran Perspectives on Doctrinal Ecumenism

1

Yves Congar: The Birth of
“Catholic Ecumenism”

—Andrew Meszaros

The Catholic Church’s embrace of the ecumenical movement can only be adequately explained with reference to the French Dominican friar, Yves Marie-Joseph Congar (1904–1995). Indeed, the first secretary general of the World Council of Churches, Willem Visser ’t Hooft (1900–1985), declared Yves Congar to be “the father of Roman Catholic ecumenism.”1

Congar’s Ecumenical Biography

In 1904, Yves Congar was born in Sedan, France, into a devout Catholic family. At age 10, the Great War had begun: German forces had occupied the Ardennes region and his parish church was burned to the ground. For the next six years, Congar would worship in a church that was generously lent to the Catholics of Sedan by the local Calvinist pastor. Far from a homogenous French Catholic town, many of the young Yves’s friends were Jews and Protestants. The seeds of his ecumenical vocation were planted already in childhood.

At 17, Congar began his studies for the priesthood in Paris, where he immersed himself in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Four years later, he entered the Dominican novitiate in Amiens, and finally began his core theological studies from 1926 to 1931 at the Saulchoir, at the time a theological powerhouse located in Belgium, known for its academic rigor and historical sensitivity. There he was introduced by his theological instructor, mentor, and confrere, Père Chenu, to the nascent ecumenical movement of Faith and Order.2 Congar completed his “lectorat” thesis in 1928 on the unity in the Church according to the Tübingen theologian, Johann Adam Möhler (1796–1838).3 On the eve of his ordination to the priesthood in 1930, he meditated on Jesus’ high-priestly prayer in John 17, the experience of which impressed even further upon the young ordinand his vocation to ecumenism: “that they may be one, even as we are one.” As he self-describes his vocation, it was at once “ecclesiological and ecumenical [unionique].”4

From 1931 to 1939, Congar was made Professor of Fundamental theology at the Saulchoir, teaching, among others, a course on ecclesiology. In that period, Congar built up numerous ecumenical contacts and interests. He took classes at the Protestant faculties in France, offered a course on Karl Barth,5 visited Germany on two separate occasions (1930–31), made multiple visits to England where he met the future archibishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsay,6 and built a relationship with the Orthodox faculty in Paris, the Insitut Saint-Serge, where he had regular contact with Georges Florovsky, Sergei Bulgakov, and Leo Zander. It was also during this time that Congar launched Unam Sanctam, a scholarly series dedicated to uncovering and presenting a more authentic and vital picture of the Catholic Church. While intending to lead off the series with a French translation of Möhler’s Die Einheit, the series’s first work ended up being Congar’s very own: Chrétiens désunis: Principes d’un “Oecuménisme” catholique (1937).7 Offering a positive Catholic vision of ecumenism, the book did much to begin normalizing a suspicious term in Catholic circles, and to articulate an ecumenical program that Catholics could embrace.

With the publication of Chrétiens désunis, a dark cloud began to gather over Congar’s head. In that same year of 1937, he was denied permission to attend the meeting in Oxford he had worked so hard at preparing. Nearly ten years after the fact, he was told that, when Pius XI refrained from granting such permission, the pope had commented to Congar’s religious superior: “The protestants would like that we make all the concessions, and they none.”8

While the war did much to bring Catholics and Protestants together on a personal level, Congar was still amazed at the misunderstandings and prejudices still existing. Five years of captivity in the camps of Colditz and Lübeck also did not make his superiors particularly more understanding of his cause. “From the beginning of 1947 to the end of 1956,” wrote Congar, “I knew nothing from that quarter [the Roman curia under Pius XII] but an uninterrupted series of denunciations, warnings, restrictive or dis...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Yves Congar: The Birth of “Catholic Ecumenism”
• Edmund Schlink: Ecumenical Theology
• Otto Hermann Pesch: Ecumenical Scholasticism
• George Lindbeck: Ecumenical Unity through Ecclesial Particularity
• John D. Zizioulas: A Pioneer of Ecumenical Dialogue and Christian Unity
• Hans Frei: Beyond Liberal and Conservative
• Wolfhart Pannenberg: Liberal Orthodoxy
• Stanley J. Grenz: The Evangelical Turn to Postliberal Theological Method
• David Tracy: Difference, Unity, and the Analogical Imagination
• Robert W. Jenson: God’s Way and the Ways of the Church
• Stanley Hauerwas: Witnessing Communities of Character
• Marilyn McCord Adams: Philosophy, Theology, and Prayer
• Pentecostalism and Christian Orthodoxy: Revision, Revival, and Renewal
• Shifting Paradigms—Future Ecumenical Challenges
• Theology Today in India: Ecumenical or Interreligious?
• Next Steps—and Visions? Lutheran Perspectives on Doctrinal Ecumenism