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A seminar of the North American Academy of Liturgy met to explore how understanding of liturgy can contribute to church unity between Lutherans and Catholics. The seminar participants, including Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and others, focused on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry as fundamental issues. They found that there is agreement on the meaning and practice of baptism, the real presence in the Eucharist, and the nature of ministry. The seminar concluded that there should be no obstacle to eucharistic sharing and no significant obstacles to the mutual recognition of ministries between Lutherans and Roman Catholics. [Extracted from the article]

This article discusses the concept of receptive ecumenism, which is a strategy for reform and revitalization within the Christian community. Receptive ecumenism involves self-critical learning and recognizing the shortcomings of one's own church. It emphasizes vulnerability and a willingness to learn from others. The article also explores the tension between strategic thinking and self-criticism in receptive ecumenism and the role of feminist theology in understanding power dynamics. Receptive ecumenism aims to bring about change and unity within the church, but it also carries risks and requires trust and love. [Extracted from the article]

The eclectic collection of Christian traditions and communities that may be considered Free Church, and the decentralized structures of these Christian communities, result in Free Church worship practices that are difficult to predict. I then explore two movements that have shaped worship in Free Church traditions in recent decades, and consider four scholarly approaches to Free Church worship. When considering liturgical renewal in retrospect in Free Church traditions, it is crucial to recognize that significant work remains to be done in decolonizing Free Church worship in ways that empower all individuals in congregations to draw deeply on local culture in shaping local practice that can challenge oppressive structures. The overlapping traits that characterize the Free Church family of Christian traditions contribute to the unpredictable nature of Free Church worship, and the multiplicity of free-spirited ways that liturgical renewal can emerge and develop. [Extracted from the article]

In 1933, ecumenical endeavour in the Church of England saw the creation of the Council on Foreign Relations, preceded four years earlier by Anglican theologians meeting informally with their counterparts from the Nordic Lutheran Churches. Following the Second World War these theological meetings resumed whilst official ecumenical meetings between the churches were sporadic and distinctions between the two confused. This article examines the Church of England's approach to the proposed 1952 theological conference in Finland. Correspondence between those who saw real value in these informal meetings and those who did not shines, a light on their ideological and bureaucratic differences. From that divisiveness, threats to end these conferences came from Archbishop Fisher and H. M. Waddams, General Secretary of the Council on Foreign relations, whilst Bishops Bell Hunter strove to protect them. This article argues their continuance was an important step on the road to the Porvoo Common Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was the Pacific church leaders during the late 1960s who propelled the idea of recognizing Pacific Islander missionaries not only in the pages of our written history books but also in the heart of the Pacific ecumenical movement. Hence was the decision to construct the Pacific Theological College (PTC) chapel and name it the 'Islander Missionaries Memorial Chapel'. The construction soon became a project symbolic of crafting a new agenda of decolonization led by the Pacific churches, built not only upon the memories of Islander missionaries forgotten by the white-man history but also upon the resilience of its members to create a new story of self-determination for Pacific Christianity. This article briefly articulates the role of the PTC chapel as one of the first symbols of decolonization in the Pacific firmly grounded on recognizing and acknowledging those pushed to the margins by mainstream history and recognizing the role of the churches in political and educational self-determination in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the development of Religious Education in England and Norway examining changes that took place in the 1960s. Using Statement Archaeology, the influence of the Christian ecumenical movement on English RE is identified. This movement has mostly been overlooked in the historiographies of RE, yet it appears to play a key role in creating circumstances in which the legitimate study of non-Christian worldviews becomes possible. The paper presents existing research that demonstrates how these global ecumenical discourses affected educational policies in England, setting out a compelling case for further exploration of the developments in Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irish bishops found themselves part of a conservative minority when the Second Vatican Council embarked on a radical overhaul of the Catholic Church between 1962 and 1965. The Irish Church hierarchy generally implemented the resultant changes in a hesitant and unenthusiastic manner. Criticism of their performance was generally muted but the spirit of Vatican II was not entirely without enthusiastic Irish advocates. REALITY, a Redemptorist monthly with a large and mainly young readership, experienced ongoing conflict with clerical censors in the second half of the 1960s. Material in the Archive of the Dublin Catholic Archdiocese show clashes occuring over ecumenism, Vatican II's new conception of the duties of the Catholic lay person and the issue of whether church teaching ought to be enforced by state law. A complicating factor inhibiting repressive action by the Archdiocese was the links forged by this religious magazine with the secular world of Dublin journalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fred Donner contends that Muḥammad (c. 570–632) led an ecumenical movement of "believers," a term used frequently in the Qur'ān which Donner defines as a generic term that included Jews and Christians as well as former polytheists who followed Muḥammad's newly-proclaimed koranic prescriptions. In Donner's view, only several generations after Muḥammad's death did this movement come to call itself "Islam" and its members "Muslims" in the sense of a confessional identity over and against Judaism and Christianity. Tilman Nagel argues, to the contrary, that Muḥammad's movement was neither ecumenical nor inclusive and that it had a distinct confessional identity from the outset with which it self-consciously set itself apart from Judaism and Christianity. For Nagel, "believers" are a subset of Muslims, which was distinguished by their willingness to wage religious war under Muḥammad's command against polytheists, Jews, and Christians. Nagel's understanding of the Muslim/believer distinction better accords with the relevant koranic verses than does Donner's. It also accords far better with the earliest biographies of Muḥammad. Moreover, Nagel's thesis accounts for all of the data that Donner's thesis seeks to explain without raising the further problems that plague Donner's revisionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Receptive ecumenism is a new current in contemporary ecumenism. By focusing on unilateral learning and by dissociating itself from presuppositions of mutuality, receptive ecumenism inspires rethinking and provokes new thought in the field of ecumenical theology. This article pays special attention to the non-expectation of mutuality in receptive ecumenism and analyses its consequences with regard to asymmetrical relations. The analysis is carried out in consideration of other currents of contemporary ecumenism where mutuality is associated with the struggle for justice and equality. Guided by feminist philosophical and theological insights on negative and positive understandings of asymmetry, the article discusses the nature of receptive ecumenism in view of a wider ecumenical terrain. It explores the underlying understanding of asymmetry in receptive ecumenism. It moreover inquires into the receptive ecumenical approach to mutuality with a view to the roots of this new ecumenical current in spiritual ecumenism and interfaith engagement. Attending to the factors of agency, diversity, and listening, the article identifies challenges to the viability of receptive ecumenism. Simultaneously, it expounds the role of receptive ecumenism in revitalizing ecumenical theological reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Dutch Reformed Church (NGK) in South Africa during and before the apartheid years was long seen as an obstacle to social change. Occasional critical Afrikaner voices in the 1960s and early 1970s were firmly silenced by church authorities. After 1976, scattered clerical dissent was more clearly asserted, but at the national synod of 1982 it was abjured and critics were removed from positions of authority. At the 1986 synod, however, in a complete turnaround, church policy was radically reformed and former dissenters were returned to positions of clerical authority. As a result, in 1990, Professor Jonker of the theological faculty at Stellenbosch University was able publicly to confess his deep regret about his and his church's responsibility for the manifest evils of apartheid. This paper provides a social and intellectual history of how such transformation was brought about, its personal costs and its ultimate limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary Russian Orthodoxy has witnessed a revival of a century old religious dispute over the veneration of the divine names (imiaslavie). Debate over the issue has raged on the internet and in print across both the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) and non-canonical churches claiming to be the 'true' Orthodox. Yet unlike many issues in contemporary Russian Orthodoxy (monarchism, ecumenism, and so on), advocacy for and opposition to the veneration of the divine names divides both those within the Moscow Patriarchate and within dissenting groups. It also cuts unpredictably across the usual divide between 'liberal' or 'progressive' currents within the Church and 'traditionalist' or 'fundamentalist' currents. This contribution seeks to challenge binary interpretations of Russian Orthodoxy both from 'within' by those religious actors who seek to assert that one or another version of Orthodoxy is the 'true' one as well as from 'without' by observers who underestimate the complexity of diverse currents within it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1956 and 1991, Chinese church leaders, and Protestant churches active from the formation of the World Council of Churches, experienced a dramatic break in their relations with the international ecumenical movement. This paper will focus on the ecumenical relations between the WCC and the churches in China after 1978, when reforms and the opening up of the country under Deng Xiaoping provided new opportunities for the renewal of ties. The China Christian Council resumed its official ties with WCC in 1991 but between 1978 and 1991, new expressions and new modes of ecumenical relations had already emerged. Central to these ties were the upholding of the Three-Self Principles and the practice of the 'ecumenical sharing of resources' influenced by the outcome of the WCC's El Escorial meeting (1987). These 'post-colonial' partnerships contributed substantially to making Christianity better appreciated in China and were important channels for the practice of ecumenism in a rapidly transforming China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The former Viennese Cardinal Franz König and his foundation Pro Oriente have been prominent actors in the establishment of ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and Oriental Orthodox Churches since the Second Vatican Council. This article discusses the Christian-Muslim relations dimension of this ecumenical engagement with Middle Eastern churches in the practical field of ecumenical travel to Syria and Egypt. This intertwining of ecumenical and inter-religious engagement is studied on the basis of archival collections and journalistic accounts that make it possible to grasp the administrative process of 'travelling diplomacy'. The analysis links the practical work of ecumenical relations to the historical legacies of the Western encounter with Islam in the post-Ottoman area. I shall argue that Pro Oriente's approach was based on a new post-Vatican II theological vision of Islam. Although this did include reorientation with regard to traditional orientalist perceptions, ecumenism also became caught up in political dilemmas that were connected to either an orientalist perception of ecumenical relations (Egypt) or religious legitimization of an authoritarian regime (Syria). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

But it is into this supposed paradox that John Carter Wood plunges headfirst with this history of the Oldham Group. Addressing the issue of the proper extent of central state power, Mannheim argued for a model of the state which protected society from the worst ravages of laissez-faire capitalism whilst maximising the space for individual liberty. This is your hour; Christian intellectuals in Britain and the crisis of Europe, 1937-1949: by John Carter Wood, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, 304 pp., £85.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-5261-3253-6. [Extracted from the article]

Before there was hybrid warfare or its more innocuously styled component information warfare, there were Soviet Active Measures (Aктивные мероприятия). Conceived in 1948 and fully implemented by the 1970s, Active Measures were a palate of techniques designed to both deceive the West and to turn Western public opinion toward whatever the Soviet policy of the moment might be. "More East than West" presents a brief introduction to the Active Measures program which is followed by a single case study, that of the World Council of Churches (WCC). The image of the World Council of Churches as a Cold War pawn of the Soviet Union has become set in the American popular consciousness. It was not always so. At its birth in 1948, the WCC was seen as a promising ecumenical experiment that might serve to better unite the Christian churches of the world. Its birth, however, coincided precisely with the emergence of the Cold War and the organization was soon dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict. The Americans in the era of President Harry S. Truman saw in the group a potential ally for the Roman Catholic Church in erecting a spiritual barricade against the encroachment of atheistic communism. After 1961, the Soviets saw the group as a useful conduit for propaganda messages as designed by the Active Measures program that designed and disseminated Soviet propaganda throughout the Cold War. In the end, Soviet influence came to dominate the group's political positions, but it never became an actual front group and successive American Presidents carried on a range of relationships with the WCC. This article offers a history of the early years of the Cold War struggle over the soul of the WCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article exposes the way in which Anglican ecumenists have adopted mutually conflicting positions on the historically controverted filioque clause in agreed statements with different bilateral partners. It contrasts the restriction of the filioque to the divine economy agreed with representatives of the Oriental Orthodox tradition in the Procession and Work of the Holy Spirit (2017) with the possibility of an eternal manifestation of the Spirit from the Father through the Son which is explored in the Moscow, Dublin and Cyprus discussions (with the Chalcedonian Orthodox). The article shows how the latter position resonates better with the pneumatology contained in historic Anglican formularies and in theologians such as John Pearson and William Beveridge. The paper concludes by springboarding into broader questions about the purpose and method of Anglican ecumenical endeavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This account of religious change in Zambia discloses shifts in the ideas and practices of Christian unity since independence. It shows that state-backed appeals, at times repressive, under the slogan 'one nation, one church' gave way to a series of alternatives in institutional ecumenism, leading towards a challenge to the very nature of ecumenism, grassroots as well as institutional. The new stress is on individual choice and personal services, and yet membership in congregations persists - a complex, even contradictory, situation here conceptualised as 'multiple devotions'. The disclosure in this article calls into question conventional views of the importance of schism in churches and brings certain current tendencies - 'multiple devotions', 'charismatic transmission', 'mushrooming churches' - into focus in relation to wider, even global, religious movements, including the impact of neo-Pentecostalism and the striking new efflorescence of evangelical bodies self-labelled as 'Ministries International', in an imported style. The analysis suggests that in many of the 'Ministries International' there is a turn from church membership with fellowship in a solidary congregation to an individualistic patron- client relationship between pastor and believer. Each Ministry presupposes an asymmetrical relationship: one person ministers to another. Instead of a group of people coming together, a Ministry International offers services to whomever is interested, often on a casual basis; and, although without any drive for older forms of church unity or usual aspirations for past forms of grassroots ecumenism, the Ministries International are widely perceived to be a force for interdenominational tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In South Africa, where ecumenism historically characterised popular Christianity, the post-apartheid entry of certain Pentecostal Charismatic Churches (PCCs) has introduced decidedly anti-ecumenical tendencies. This article focuses on one such church, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), a PCC of Brazilian origin. Under the rubric of spiritual warfare and a politics of suspicion, UCKG preachers urged believers to take up both visible and invisible arms against ‘unbelievers’. These injunctions made for fraught interpersonal relationships, especially in socio-economic conditions where believers were fundamentally dependent on large social networks. For many believers, however, such visible strife did not mark a radical break in their social imaginary; ‘fighting’ bravely exposed a hitherto uncontrolled social reality, while the UCKG’s anti-catholic sentiments promised protection from, and control over, the fragility that marked adherents’ social and economic lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illuminates the precarious uncertainty in grassroots ecumenism where highly politicised, fractious Christian churches, and a strong state regime, struggle to own, interpret and re-align the public legacies of genocide. The relationship between the new Pentecostal churches, which arrived in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, and the historically dominant Catholic Church is shifting and complex. Although the new Pentecostal churches criticise the Catholic Church for its complicity in the genocide, they require it as a foil against which they can make certain kinds of claims about spiritual authenticity and authority. By examining the controversies that erupted during a supposedly unifying Christian crusade, Rwanda Thanksgiving Day or Rwanda Shima Imana, I explore the extent to which ecumenism is possible in the post-genocide period. Far from being a trivial misunderstanding between a Catholic singer and a Pentecostal pastor, at stake during the crusade were dramatically different understandings of God's presence in the world, calling into question the very possibility of ecumenical co-operation. These competing understandings are examined in the wider context of Rwandan politics and transnational evangelical Christian networks in order to show that ecumenism is highly dependent on the relationship between various religious denominations and the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An afterword is presented in which the editor discusses vairous reports within the issue on topics including Afrikaner nationalism, Christianity in Africa, and grassroots ecumenism.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including religious change, grassroots ecumenism, and Christianity in Africa.

This article traces how contemporary funerary practices - foodways, prayer and burial co-operative participation - configure a Christianised public culture in Swaziland that draws from ordinary citizens' religious, ritual and political work and membership in diverse Christian churches. This kind of grassroots ecumenism importantly challenges the potency of orthodox institutional ecumenical projects of religious elites in the kingdom. These projects include attempts to legislate Christianity as an official religion and the building of a national interdenominational church, both of which have failed to materialise. Exploring this emergent tension between religious institutions' ideological goals versus communities' practical engagement on pressing social problems invites a rethinking of how citizens produce public cultures. Research is based on intermittent fieldwork at funerals, burial co-operatives, family ceremonies and churches, interviews with local church leaders and theologians, and document research in Swaziland between 2008 and 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecumenism has been a constant effort of many Christian agents in war-torn Angola ever since the 1960s, and certainly in the reconciliation initiatives that have taken place since the end of the war in 2002. Today, ecumenism is a structuring concept in the new law of religious freedom, which stipulates that, in order for religions to be legal, they must belong to an 'Ecumenical Platform'. Yet, in the northern parts of Angola, Bakongo people remember too well how strongly allied Christianity has been with oppressive forms of power since the arrival of Diogo Cão five centuries ago, and especially since the martyrdom of Kimpa Vita in 1706. The local cosmology and an acute sense of historical resentment have created a strong resistance to any form of Christian ecumenism, especially among the thousands of exiled Bakongo who are returning to the country from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, where they explored their Kongo, rather than their Portuguese, roots. Thanks to these returnees, Kongo religious institutions, some officially banned by Angolan laws, are being visibly revitalised and spread among local people to whom Christianity and ecumenism have little to offer beyond memories of suffering and oppression. How far grassroots ecumenism may be possible among these Kongo religious institutions remains uncertain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on religion in Zambia, this article engages critically with approaches that suggest that ecumenism necessarily occurs across socio-religious boundaries. I argue that the objective of ecumenism - namely, good-willed co-operation between religious practitioners who are otherwise separated from each other in terms of their institutional affiliations - can also be attained through boundary work and use of the meta-codes 'non- Christian - Christian' and 'Christian -"real" Christian'. I contend that using these meta-codes in the logic of what has been called 'fractal recursion' allows people to stress situationally the existence of commonalities between religious practitioners and/or religious groupings that, at other points in time, are perceived to be different from each other. In this way, the shifting of categorical boundaries produces ecumenical reality effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sheds light on grassroots ecumenism by pursuing a largely neglected interest in the participation of Afrikaners, from the late apartheid period to the present, in far-reaching religious and social change in South Africa. The account comprehends an apparent paradox. The more Afrikaners have sought to be inclusive, reaching across differences towards some consensus (humanitarian if not doctrinal), the more strongly and intimately has conflict among them intensified. In their struggles, an old, once formidably entrenched Christian public culture has been profoundly questioned. Now challenged by counterpublics concerned about racism and inequality, that Christian public culture is still being reconstructed, if somewhat fitfully, in ways that are deliberately reasoned and morally passionate. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork, the present analysis shows where and how grassroots ecumenism emerged in various forms in tandem with the institutional ecumenism that was once banned among Afrikaners by their dominant church, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) or Dutch Reformed Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the intertwined histories of Christian ecumenism and ethnic nationalism in Swaziland, shedding new light on the importance of Protestant evangelical thought in the formation of nationalist ideology in 20th-century southern Africa. From the 1920s to the 1970s, Swaziland's Zionist Christians sought to amalgamate Swaziland's churches under the auspices of a 'biblical Christianity' that harked back to the Apostolic era. Their ecumenical project was strategically harnessed by the Swazi Paramount Chief, Sobhuza II, who discerned the utility of propping up embryonic Swazi nationalism by the formation of a single national church. While Zionist ecumenists and Swazi nationalists sought to create a unified church for a unified nation, the success of their collaborative project was always limited. As well as their desire to unify across denominational borders, Zionist Christians were also characterised by a quintessentially Protestant urge to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit in breaking away from existing churches and forming disparate new organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of grassroots ecumenism in Botswana focuses on the funerals in which much interdenominational co-operation and religious rapprochement prevails, even against troubling dissent. Because this accomplishment is relatively exceptional not only in southern Africa but in the continent as a whole, its special history, in a post-colonial shift towards religious tolerance, is examined along with its more enduring socio-cultural basis. The account documents the emergence of a whole shared repertoire of ideas and practices, and a distinctive social space outside any church, for activating grassroots ecumenism in its boundary-crossing, its inclusive relatedness and its opening of belonging in the presence of difference. A simple logic, tied to common-sense assumptions about gender roles, is shown to inform certain parts of this shared repertoire. The analysis of cases from funerals in Tswapong villages in the Central district and in the city discloses how ecumenical and anti-ecumenical tensions are managed, especially by local ministers, while caring mourners try to console the bereaved and maintain amity for the sake of promised salvation for the dead. Given the importance, in the funerals as in public life, of civic ideals, decorum and formality, this analysis also clarifies how public officials conclude, and even regulate, funerals by bringing together their appeals, ecumenical ones to God and civic ones for the upholding of citizenship, of moral interdependence and responsibility in village life. More generally, the argument is that grassroots ecumenism is a boundary-crossing phenomenon of broad interest for comparative analysis of the cultural and social creation of a popular religious movement that looms large in everyday lives and which contributes to the welcome shape of citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While discussions of religious activity during the First World War have commonly stressed the development of ecumenical relationships and much has been made of theAppeal to All Christian Peoplemade by the 1920 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, little attempt has been made to examine the reality of local ecumenical activity in the opening decades of the 20thcentury. Some evidence, such as that referenced in the title, has suggested that the animosity of the previous century continued. Conversely, much anecdotal war-time evidence from both military and civilian contexts indicates a thawing of previous attitudes. This article closely examines the evidence from the east midlands, drawing the conclusion that ecumenical relationships were generally neither antagonistic nor genuinely friendly. Rather, Anglicanism and nonconformity largely existed in separate social and cultural worlds, and there is little evidence indicative of significant local ecumenical progress in that period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

After reviewing some of the unique ecumenical steps taken by Pope Francis, this article examines briefly the three ecumenical paragraphs inEvangelii Gaudium. It presents them in the wider context of this post-synodal exhortation, of the ecumenical gestures and testimonies of Pope Francis, the ecumenical orientation of the Catholic Church and the ecumenical movement as such. It concludes with an outlook on a newly emerging ecumenical paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freedom of religion generally resonates in the collective mind as a prized legacy of the European Enlightenment alongside most individual liberties and modern values. This assumption, however, is flawed as it tends to downplay centuries of religious pluralism and cohabitation. Tolerance, in other words, was a practice long before it became a theory. This article considers tolerance not as an idea, but as a religious belief and a practice in the early Enlightenment. Drawing from rare manuscript sources scattered over several countries, it argues that tolerance was a grassroots Christian belief primarily promoted by those who needed it the most: persecuted radical dissenters. It shows how the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 sparked a tolerationist spur in Protestant countries, ‘refuges’ that often offered only a limited level of freedom. By contrast, more radical forms of tolerance existed among underground millenarians and ecumenical societies of this period. These refuges and milieus made a significant contribution to the Enlightenment debate on tolerance and deserve to be acknowledged for it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The notion of religious reform pervades Friedrich Max Müller’s work from the very beginning. Originally rooted in a Christian context and informed by contemporary theological controversies in Germany and in England, his conception of ‘reform’ is expanded into a hermeneutic tool to interpret the general history of religion(s). As a scholar involved in contemporary public debates, Müller considered reform as an ethical requirement, likely to promote a spiritual regeneration of colonial Asia in particular, and to foster the cause of world peace. Although he never challenged the primacy of Christianity, Müller wished for its purification from dogmatism and ritualism. Only a simultaneous reform of all major religions would allow for their convergence in an all-embracing Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on the importance of gender in worship and as ecumenical theme throughout a divided church. It offers the liturgical life in Christian congregations, wherein people might think that gender is a factor across the denominational differences. It cites the reality of gender practices influencing liturgical life that has a complex genealogy in the history of Christian worship.

An essay is presented which explores some aspects of community's liturgical life in light of its commitment to ecumenism, to the centrality of prayer, and to a radical welcome. It says that Taizé, an ecumenical community, is named after the village in southern Burgundy in France. It offers the early life of the community with founder Brother Roger, the approach of the Community of Taizé to ecumenism, and communal prayer.

Interreligious education has been a concern over the past few decades and continues to be a challenge. This article will review ways in which religious education has attempted to face the issue of education for increasingly multifaith societies. It identifies objectivity in religion as a major concern and will provide a perspective based on the writings of philosopher-theologian Bernard Lonergan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Inspired by a critical reading of James Scott'sThe Art of Not Being Governed(2009) which argued that Highlanders in Southeast Asia have intentionally evaded ‘state capture and state formations’, I offer a contrasting vision of Highlander motivations and desires from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I argue that, in pre-colonial times, lowland states and Highland regions have been mutually constitutive through trade, tribute and feasts. Economic, political and ritual exchanges and connections were far more important for both uplands and lowlands than is usually acknowledged, not only in scholarship but in such phrases as ‘remote and backward areas’. For postcolonial Vietnam, I show that Highlanders were often motivated by the desire to become modern, and enacted such desires by joining ecumenes that embody modern universals, in particular revolutionary and Christian ecumenes, exemplifying oppositional pathways to modernity that contrast with those offered by authors Tania Li and Holly High. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alarmed by the fate of the Jews in the Holocaust, a Finnish female missionary in relatively peaceful Jerusalem developed an idea for an ecumenical Hebrew Christian centre that would care for refugee Jewish children, and, which through education and a scientific centre, would advance the evangelization of the Jews in Palestine. Using the archival and published materials of Aili Havas and the Finnish mission, this paper studies the evolution and eventual failure of the plan. It also discusses the difficulties of cooperation between Protestant missions and their shifting theological opinions about missionizing the persecuted Jews, as well as the combination of Christianity, gender, relief and development as a powerful motivator for action, particularly during turbulent historical moments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Unitatis Redintegratio, the decree on the participation of the Catholic Church in the ecumenical movement, was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on Saturday 21 November 1964, now just over 50 years ago. This article reminds us of the events leading up to that day, which shaped the text and which must be understood, if we are to arrive at a proper evaluation of the decree and its consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article illustrates how the ecclesiological ideas developed by Professor Daniel Hardy (1930–2007) have been received and used in the life of the Church of England's Diocese of Coventry. It highlights the importance of theological engagement for those in a position of oversight and leadership in the Church, and goes on to connect Hardy's language of intensity and extensity with the story, structure and ethos of Coventry Cathedral in general, and with the iconic Stalingrad Madonna in particular, illustrating the rich synthesis that can be achieved between systematic ecclesiology and the central ethos of a church. The article goes on to argue that certain practices in the Church of England in general, and Coventry Diocese in particular, resonate well with Hardy's idea of ‘socio-poiesis’. These include the nurture of virtuous ecclesial practice and use of measurement in parish life (notably through ‘Natural Church Development)’, the new form taken by ecumenism in British cities and the role of the Bishop within it, as well as the embeddedness of the Church of England in many of the nation's schools. In relating Hardy's key themes to these concrete practices, this article challenges the stale division between Church and Academy, advocating fruitful and animating dialogue between the two as the best response to the challenges faced by each today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article expounds the question of the ecumenical responsibility of Pentecostalism by taking the Pentecost narrative in Acts 2 as a leading text. The work of the Spirit and the many tongues are taken as a model that affirms both ecclesial particularity and at the same time transcends this particularity. It will be argued that such a work of the Spirit is central to the Missio Spiritu and will, as at the day of Pentecost, lead towards an ecumenical solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is part 2 of a paper whose first part was published in the Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 34.2 (2014). This part deals with a variety of practical issues including the benefits of ecumenical cooperation and reasons behind negative perceptions of ecumenism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Italian Pentecostals are not much involved in the ecumenical process; only in recent years have they started a serious dialogue with other evangelical churches. With the Catholic Church there is no official dialogue; this is due to the problematic relations of the past that still need to be resolved. In addition, the Italian Pentecostals identify several difficult issues that should be defined in a biblical, theological and legal perspective, in relation to the objectives and purposes of ecumenism. In this, their position is not different from that of other classical Pentecostal churches expressed at international level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theological themes and ecumenical methods which dominate current ecumenical discourse reflect the preferences of the traditions long active in the movement. This poses a serious challenge to the growing participation of the Pentecostal and Evangelical sections of Christianity in ecumenical dialogues. Their integration demands not only that they learn to step into this history, but also that their spiritual and theological particularities carry weight in the further development of ecumenical theology. Four decades of International Roman Catholic-Classical Pentecostal Dialogue demonstrate how courageous choices regarding themes, dialogue method and theological method can mature and bear fruit. It teaches new partners in the ecumenical dance not to simply copy the rhythms and moves of their dialogue partners, but to dance to the beat of their own drums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues firstly, from the context of ecumenical part-residential training, that ministerial identity is formed through attention to God's presence in the margins - those transitional places where the interrelationships between God, the Church, and the wider world are grounded. Secondly, by drawing on the work of Volf, Moltmann, McFadyen, and Ford, this formational process is characterized as one which is essentially pneumatic, pointing to the Spirit as boundary-crosser, the one who inhabits the betwixt and between as well as the tension between the now and the not yet. Thirdly, God's presence in these transitions is illustrated by viewing one great transitional event, Good Friday, through a pneumatic lens. We suggest that the formational quality which such a transition demands of ministers is resilience. The article concludes by briefly examining the potential for three other transitional events in this paschal cycle (Holy Saturday, Easter Day, and Pentecost) to demand the formational qualities of watchfulness, hospitality, and trustfulness from both ministers and from the Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the first document of the ecumenical council of the Catholic Church Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Liturgy which transformed the liturgy of the Catholic Church. It states the significant implications of the Constitution for the liturgical worship including Anglican, Lutheran and Reformed churches worldwide. It also provides an overview of the basic principles as practical directives for the renewal and reform of the liturgy.

This article is in two parts, the second of which will be published in JEPTA 2015.1. The whole paper has the following sections of which only the first four, outlining ecumenism itself and three of the challenges it brings us, are published in this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the history of Scottish ecumenism through the institutional ecumenism of the Scottish Churches Council, the Scottish Ecumenical Committee, the second Scottish Churches Council and Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS), looking at the significant contribution of Scottish Churches House and the 'Tell Scotland' Movement. It also looks at the history of 'participative ecumenism' and how it has related to 'representative ecumenism'. It gives a brief reflection on local ecumenism and notes the history of discussion for organic union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses specifically on the impact of the Christian churches on the social, cultural and political contexts of South Africa. It considers the political role of the mainline Christian churches and their ecumenical bodies during the apartheid era. In post-apartheid South Africa, the social and political context has changed and the Christian churches relate to this new context in varied ways. The rapid growth and proliferation of Christian churches under forces of globalization to some extent undermines social cohesion and development. The traditional practice of the public gathering, or imbizo, is particularly threatened. This article therefore seeks to address the question of whether Christian institutions in a rapidly globalizing Africa are an asset or liability for promoting identity and belonging, social cohesion, and the development of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the summer of 2014 the Swedish Church is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the appointment of Nathan Söderblom as archbishop of Uppsala, and thus head of the Swedish church organisation. As a Lutheran with an enormously broad-minded and broad-reaching approach to ecumenical understanding and community-building, Söderblom shot to prominence in the interwar period not only because of his ecumenical engagement, calling for an evangelical catholicity so stand side by side with the Roman catholic and Orthodox catholic traditions, but also because of his comprehensive secular engagement for peace and understanding between peoples. In the latter context he also acquired a solid reputation as a perhaps less prominent but still noteworthy figure in the history of European integration. This article investigates how, why and to what extent Söderblom’s ecumenical and secular engagements were intertwined. The first part discusses how his biographical and academic background led to such staunch ecumenical positions, while the second part focuses on the secular engagement, which was perceived by Söderblom as necessary to make progress on the ecumenical front in the practical political realities of the 1920s. The final part, comparing and contrasting Söderblom’s views with those of Count Richard von Coudenhove-Calergi and the Pan-European Union, demonstrates why Söderblom’s engagement for Europe had to be limited: unity in Christ is by definition global in nature and therefore cannot be continent-specific. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This editorial article briefly reviews retrospectively the research undertaken by the Anglo-Nordic Diaconal Research Project (ANDREP), which has been concerned primarily with the Churches of Sweden and Norway, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Church of England, with reference to ecclesiology andpraxisin other churches, and to concommitant research and ecumenical developments elsewhere, in relation to the diaconate. From the publication of the WCC Faith and Order Paper onBaptism, Eucharist and Ministry(BEM, 1982) and throughout the period of the formation of the Porvoo communion of Churches, there appeared to be great promise for the renewal of the deacon's ministry. However, it became apparent that, in the Church of England at least, renewal of the diaconate was not generally regarded principally as an end in itself but as a means of advancing the cause of women's ordination to priesthood. Furthermore, mono-presbyterate and the variety of meanings given to the term ‘diakonia’ have presented a number of problems. Fundamental principles of ecclesiology pertaining to the diaconate also were – and remain – unknown or disregarded in much church practice. A number of challenges which consequently arise for the churches have been identified over time and are addressed in this issue of theInternational Journal for the Study of the Christian Church(IJSCC), vol. 13, no. 4 (2013), on the theme of ‘The Ministry of the Deacon in Times of Ecumenical Reconfiguration’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article gives an account of the background to the Hanover Report,The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity(1996), and in particular to the West Wickham consultation (1995). Recognising that the diaconate offers new ecumenical perspectives on ordained ministry, the author presents and critiques the Hanover Report for its harmonisation of contradictory positions, especially among Lutherans. The idea of diaconal ministries in the report makes the distinctive diaconate indistinct and gives rise to a mainly functional understanding of ministry. Ecclesiologically historical layers contradicting each other are mixed in such a way that the ecumenically productive eucharistic ecclesiology derived from the Early Church and central to the report's understanding of the diaconate remains at the end rather indistinguishable among the variety of other perspectives conveyed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]