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NEW MEMBERS UNITE WITH COUNCIL OF CHURCHES
Recently, the Governing Board of The Rhode Island State Council of Churches heartily welcomed into its membership The Ballou Charming District of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations and the Social Service Churches New England.
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA) was formed in 1961 through the consolidation of the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association. Today the UUA is a faith community of more than 1000 congregations that support each other and bring to the world a vision of religious freedom, tolerance and social justice. There are nine congregations in Rhode Island: four in Providence, and one each in East Greenwich, Harrisville, Newport, Peace Dale, and Woonsocket.
The Social Service Churches New England is a branch of the Dominican Social Services Churches, Inc., founded in the Dominican Republic in 1962 as an ecumenical service organization. The Social Service Churches of New England includes many Spanish speaking churches in Providence and is working with the tremendous potential of these churches to alleviate the many social problems that exist in the city and its surrounding towns.
STATEMENT OF THE FAITH AND ORDER COMMISSION
To the Governing Board, Thursday, September 28, 2006
Between February 15, 2005 and June 20, 2006, the Commission undertook and completed a focussed reading and discussion of the Rev Prof Michael Kinnamon’s The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and how it has been impoverished by its friends (Chalice, 2003: St. Louis, ISBN 0-8272-4006-6). The chapter titles give a sense of the book’s concerns; for example: "Unity as Gift: Why Communion Is Not Our Achievement", "Unity and Renewal: Why Cooperation Is Not the Goal of Ecumenism", "Unity and Diversity: Why Uniting Diversities Is Not the Vision", "Councils of Churches: Why They Are Not Structures Alongside the Churches", "Unity in Christ: Why Interfaith Relations Are a Good But Different Thing." We came to our September 19 meeting prepared to compile for the whole Council the fruits of our long engagement with his important book – at a time when our Council is engaged in institutional goal-setting, reflection, and Executive Minister search.
Dr Kinnamon, a Disciples of Christ pastor who teaches at Eden Seminary in St Louis, is a Brown University graduate who spoke at the New England Ecumenical Institute in Providence in the mid-1990s, and who has served as past Faith and Order Commissioner for the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and for the National Council of Churches (NCCC) in the USA. He is currently Chair of the NCCC Advocacy, Justice and Service (AJS) Commission, and is widely published on ecumenical work. He dedicates his book to local State Councils of Churches – 30 of which he has visited over the years. I have spoken with him in Providence, in Boston (2004) and most recently, by phone. We also wrote to him last year to tell him we were taking up his book – which has a chapter on State Councils. When relating the issues before our Council in Rhode Island, and the search, Constitution, and related issues with which we have struggled recently, Dr Kinnamon observed that we are far from unique in that regard across the fifty states.
The Faith And Order Commission considers that The Rhode Island State Council of Churches should bear these five issues in mind as we renew and move forward:
- That a major role of the Council is Christian Unity – a role not always given priority (witness the wider Council’s relative indifference to the Prayer for Christian Unity services and related activities each year). While definitions may vary, Unity is a Gift and Goal – with Christ as the Center.
- That theology needs to be pervasive and fundamental to the Council’s being, work, and vision, and not segregated off to a side committee for those who are interested in that sort of thing. (It has been observed that Faith and Order has no direct seat on our Governing Board, nor is it represented on the current Search Committee.) Dr Kinnamon moved from F&O to AJS at the National Council level in part to make this very point.
- That the Council is the Church, and not some institution or agency over and against the Church(es). It should not be them, but us; a necessary and organic part of each communion’s being the Body of Christ, and not just one of many other worthwhile affiliations undertaken when budgets and volunteer time permit.
That this is a Council of Churches and not just a confluence of Christians from local congregations interested in and committed to a particular societal or other agenda.
- That the confessional basis of the Council is far from incidental; but, rather, in truth, it is the very basis for our ecumenical calling: the deposit of the Faith that we as Christians hold in common. Our fellow-members from Eastern Orthodoxy (as well as many in Western traditions) have a particular charism in reminding us of this (as we have seen in recent years locally and internationally).
- That the Council of Churches keep to the fore the commitment of the Churches to each other, as opposed to a predominant emphasis on each individual connection to the Council. (This follows on issue 3, above.) It is the relations of the Communions one to another as the Church, together, which makes for the purpose and being of the Council.
We noted during today’s Governing Board meeting that these five fruits of our Commission work were rather resonant with the summary, distributed earlier in the meeting, of the June 28, 2006, Board Strategic Planning session.
We will continue to be in communication with Dr Kinnamon, and are grateful to him for his leadership on such conciliar and ecumenical questions that are so central to our own calling here by the sea.
The Reverend W Scott Axford, MDiv
Commission Co-Chair (and RI Universalist Representative)