CENTRO PRO UNIONE N. 65 - Spring 2004 ISSN: 1122-0384 semi-annual Bulletin In this issue: Letter from the Director...................................................p. 2 Christian Unity and Christian Diversity, Lessons from Liturgical Renewal The Case of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Thomas F. Best ...................................................p. 3 Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations A New Step to be Taken, A New Stage to be Reached Mary Tanner.....................................................p. 14 The Petrine Ministry: Vatican I in the Light of Vatican II Herman J. Pottmeyer................................................p. 20 Week of Prayer 2004 Homily John Flack....................................................... p. 25 Centro Pro Unione - Via S. Maria dell'Anima, 30 - 00186 Rome, Italy A Center conducted by the Franciscan Friars of the AtonementDirector's Desk Normally we would be including in this Bulletin the up-date of the Bibliography of the International Interchurch Theological Dialogues but due to the happy event of the birth of our librarian’s son, we have had to postpone this up-date until the Fall issue of 2004. You may, however, always find the up to date (in real time) bibliography on our web site at all times. Instead, in this issue we are pleased to offer you the texts of some interesting conferences held at the Centro Pro Unione during the past year. First is the text of Dr. Tom Best that was given in our series: “Liturgical Renewal as a Way to Christian Unity”. Many of you know that Tom is a member of the Christian Church known as the Disciples of Christ and a long time staff person of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. We are particularly happy to offer this text because Dr. Best has been one of the prime movers for including many liturgical or worship texts as part of the work of Faith and Order. The second text published is that of Dr. Mary Tanner, former co-moderator of the Faith and Order Commission and member of the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity and Mission (IARCCUM). This conference was the sixth annual conference in honor of Fr. Paul Wattson and Mother Lurana White. Mary’s talk entitled: “Anglican-Roman Catholic Relations. A New Step to be Taken, A New Stage to be Reached” was very timely in light of the developments in the Anglican Communion. It is an honest and courageous appraisal of our relationships at this time as well as containing a realistic note of hope for the future. In order to shed even more light on the situation, especially in the United States, we have invited Prof. William Franklin, a scholar and historian, to address “The Current Situation in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. What are the Implications for the Ecumenical Future?” The last two items in this Spring issue come from this year’s celebration of the Week of Prayer. We do not usually include homilies but Bishop John Flack’s homily impressed so many people that we decided to include it along with the text of the conference which was given by Prof. Hermann Pottmeyer, Member of the International Theological Commission. When we approached Dr. Pottmeyer to speak we asked him to do something on methodology and the hermeneutics of the dogmatic texts of the two Vatical Councils. He did this by offering a case study on the Petrine Ministry and how to read Vatican I in the light of Vatican II. We hope our readers will be stimulated and challenged by his approach to the question of the relationship between the two councils as well as the correct way of reading them. During the Winter months and early Spring, diverse groups visited the Centro including students from the Lutheran College of St. Olaf (USA) for whom we did a three week course; the students and professors of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey; members of the Lutheran-Catholic International Dialogue as well as the drafting committee of the Methodist-Catholic International Dialogue; and a group of Anglican Archdeacons. Our pilot project “Ecumenismo in Erba” (“Budding Ecumenism”) has gotten of the ground and we have received classes of young children (ages 5-11) for this initiative of Dr. Teresa Francesca Rossi, research assistant at the Centro.. This periodical is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16 th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 (http://www.atla.com). James F. Puglisi, sa DirectorN. 65 /Spring 2004Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 3 Centro Conferences CCCC Christian Unity and Christian Diversity, Lessons from Liturgical Renewal The Case of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Thomas F. Best Pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Staff member for Faith and Order in the World Council of Churches, Geneva. (Conference held at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday, 7 November 2002) I wish to thank the Centro Pro Unione for the great privilege of speaking to you on the topic of “Christian Unity and Christian Diversity, Lessons from Liturgical Renewal: The Case of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).” Having begun with thanks I now move, as do many liturgies, to confession: I am not going to deliver precisely what I have promised, rather something more limited in scope — but thereby sharper in focus — than my original title would indicate. So I ask you to add to my title the words “within a populist sacramental church.” The church in question is my own church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the memorable description of our church as “populist sacramental” comes from the seminal liturgist we have produced, Keith Watkins. 1 I invite you to see what follows as a case study on how that particular church has come, through the liturgical renewal movement, to a new and more profound understanding of its own identity and mission. 2 1.The Origin and Distinctive Quality of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ): From the Early Nineteenth Century on To understand this story it is essential to know something of the distinctive history and beliefs of our church, but also its character and ethos. It began in the first two or three decades of the nineteenth century (1820-1830) on the “frontier” in the United States, the frontier then being western Virginia and Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio, from the coalescing of impulses for the “restoration” of the “clear picture,” as was thought, of the church as found in the New Testament. Principal founders of the move- ment were father and son Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Presbyterians from Scotland but who had also lived in Ireland, and another Presbyterian, Barton W. Stone. The movement was a remarkable combination of Enlightenment rationalism and evangelistic zeal; it was said that Alexander Campbell would arrive on horseback at frontier camp meetings and revivals with saddle-bags full of books holding, on one side of the horse, Greek texts and the bible in various translations — including one which he issued himself,3 mind you – and, on the other side, the writings of Isaac Newton and John Locke. These founders were driven by the desire to lead the divided churches (Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, others) towards a unity rooted in the weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Four things in particular characterized this early unity movement: observance of the Lord’s Supper (or communion or Eucharist) on each Lord’s Day (or Sunday); baptism by submersion, or full immersion, of not only professing, but penitent adult believers; a decidedly congregational polity, with elders providing leadership; and a hunger for the unity of Christians. I have been told, upon describ- ing this constellation of core beliefs, that we are a “cafeteria church,” formed by taking the eucharistic frequency of the Anglicans, the baptismal practice of the Baptists, and the polity of the Congregationalists; but we would say that the reality is just the reverse: we have taken each and every one of these practices, as well as the imperative for unity, from a single source, the New Testament; while other churches have devolved from this coherent pattern, specializing in one aspect of the New Testament picture — sometimes to the extent, as with the Baptists, that the church has taken its very name from that one aspect of Christian faith and practice. The early Disciples were also shaped and characterized by two negative factors. The first was a positive dislike, born of personal experience, of the divisions and rivalries among Christians: one of the Disciples’ foundational myths tells how one of the Campbells, 1 “Breaking the Bread of Life: The Eucharistic Piety of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ),” Mid-Stream 36, 3/4 (1997) 293-307 (reference, p. 296, citing Celebrate with Thanksgiving: Patterns of Prayer at the Communion Table [St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001], esp. 11ff.). 2 The following discussion draws upon my recent articles on Disciples worship published in P. BRADSHAW, ed., The New SCM Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship (London: SCM Press, 2002) 44- 45, 76-77, 110-112, 181-182, 349-350, 483-484. 3 G. CAMPBELL, J. MacKNIGHT, and P. DODDRIGE, The Sacred Writings of the Apostles and Evangelists of Jesus Christ: Common Styled the New Testament. Translated from the original Greek, with Prefaces, Various Emendations, and an Appendix by Alexander Campbell (Bethany, Virginia, compiled by Alexander Campbell, 1833).4 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 65 /Spring 2004 still in the Old Country, had been excluded from the Lord’s Supper in a Presbyterian Church not because he was not a Presbyterian — he was — but because he was the wrong kind of Presbyterian. The will to unity in this early period had a radical, almost visceral side to it and the cause of unity was something, ecclesially speaking at least, to die for: in the “Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery,” one of the more remarkable documents of church history, an ecclesial body publicly declared the following: “We will that this body die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large.” It was not for nothing that the early leaders called Christian unity the Disciples’ “polar star,” for us the fixed point around which all else revolves. 4 A second negative factor in these formational days was a healthy suspicion of creeds, not so much in themselves as positive statements of faith, but in their negative use. As Campbell said – and remember he was thinking of divisions among Protestant bodies at least as much as between Protestants and Roman Catholics – wherever he saw divided churches, he saw their respective creeds justifying, and maintaining, them in their division. But the situation was nuanced: the Apostles Creed was considered “catholic” (of value for all the churches) “because it is a recital of the facts of the gospel.”5 And I myself grew up in a Disciples church which recited the Apostles Creed every week. But let us now look in more detail at the worship practice of the churches in the early Disciples movement. Since no definitive, detailed rite is described — much less prescribed — in the New Testament it was incumbent upon congregations and particularly their elders, in the maturity of their faith and exercising reason, to order the community’s worship (which, remember, each Sunday included the Lord’s Supper). Typically the service included prayers, hymns, scripture readings, the celebration of the Supper itself, preaching (if, and only if, a person of suitable gifts were available!), and a concluding collection. Leadership was provided, at each point in the service, by those best suited according to the gifts they had received from the Lord. A clear and colorful sense of these early days comes from Alexander Campbell’s account, taken from his “memorandum- book,” of Lord’s Day worship in one church which he had visited: “Not having any person whom they regarded as filling Paul’s outlines of a bishop [meaning a local overseer or pastor], they had appointed two senior members, of a very grave deportment, to preside in their meetings. These persons were not competent to labor in the word and teaching; but they were qualified to rule well, and to preside with Christian dignity. One of them presided at each meeting.”6 At a certain point in the service: “He [the presiding officer] then called upon a brother, who was a very distinct and emphatic reader, to read a section of the evangelical history. He arose and read, in a very audible voice, the history of the crucifixion of the Messiah.” 7 Later on Campbell records, with satisfaction, that following one of the prayers “the whole congregation, brethren and sisters, pronounced aloud the final Amen.”8 Note in particular the early eucharistic practice of the Disciples of Christ, this being the most distinctive aspect, the heart of our identity as a church, and, as we shall see later on, perhaps the area of our greatest interaction — and learning — from the liturgical movement. As Campbell’s account continues, then, we have his description of the Lord’s Supper as conducted in a Disciples congregation in a frontier town, perhaps in western Virginia and perhaps about 1830: “The president [usually a lay elder, duly appointed by the congregation] arose and said that our Lord had a table for his friends, and that he invited his disciples to sup with him.” [Following a brief meditation, focusing on Christ’s giving of himself for the world’s salvation:] “He [the president] took a small loaf from the table, and in one or two periods gave thanks for it. After thanksgiving he raised it in his hand, and significantly brake it, and handed it to the disciples on each side of him, who passed the broken loaf from one to another, until they all partook of it. There was no stiffness, no formality, no pageantry; all was easy, familiar, solemn, cheerful. He then took the cup in a similar manner, and returned thanks for it, and handed it to the disciple sitting next to him, who passed it round; each one waiting upon his brother, until all were served. The thanksgiving before the breaking of the loaf, and the distributing of the cup, were as brief and pertinent to the occasion, as the thanks usually presented at a common table for the ordinary blessings of God’s bounty.” 9 Significantly, the Supper was followed by prayers of supplica- tion on behalf of the afflicted, the poor and the destitute, and in behalf of the conversion of the world.10 As the account of the service continues no sermon is men- tioned, and indeed the practice was to dispense with the sermon 4 The image continues to fascinate Disciples. See for example P.A. CROW, Jr., “Three Dichotomies and a Polar Star,” Mid-Stream 21, 1 (1982) 21-30. 5 W.J. RICHARDSON, “Alexander Campbell as an Advocate of Christian Union,” in Lectures in Honor of the Alexander Campbell Bicentennial, 1788-1988 (Nashville: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1988) 104. 6 A. CAMPBELL, The Christian System, 2 nd edition (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Company, 1839) 290. 7 Ibid., 291. 8Ibid. 9 Ibid., 291-292. 10 Ibid., 292.N. 65 /Spring 2004Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 5 when no one considered suitable to preach was at hand; but Scripture readings and some sort of reaction to them was always included, and after the collection a number of persons rose to read biblical passages and to propose, and inquire on, matters “tending to the edification of the body.” Following several spiritual songs, “on the motion of a brother who signified that the hour of adjournment had arrived,” the president pronounced the apostolic benediction. 11 Characteristically, Campbell offers this whole account not as a fixed prescription for Disciples worship, but as an example which included the essential elements, conducted in a way which he found to be commendable in practice, of the Lord’s Day service, that is, the Lord’s Supper service. If gathering at the Lord’s Table was “the one essential act of Sunday worship,” repeated again and again, then it was balanced by baptism as a decisive single moment in the believer’s lifelong journey in faith. Disciples baptismal theology and practice was, I think, less distinctive than their understanding and conduct of the eucharist, and here we need only to outline it briefly. Their baptismal position was, of course, explained with the usual vigor and clarity of thought. Again the determining factor was what was understood to be New Testament practice; and so baptism for Disciples was characterized by the profession of faith offered by a penitent believer, the use of the trinitarian formula, and full immersion in water. In excluding “indiscriminate” (including but not limited to infant) baptism the Disciples founders also sought to distinguish the church from the surrounding culture and from the state, and to expunge the memory of baptismal practice in the established churches of the Old World. This was one area where the early Disciples leadership had significant differences of opinion amongst themselves, notably over whether immersion was the only valid “mode” of baptism. Barton Stone did not insist absolutely on it, but Alexander Campbell did and, partly to make the point, in his own translation of the New Testament famously rendered every occurrence of baptizein as “immerse.” Let us conclude this initial exposition by looking more closely at the sacramental dimension of this frontier unity movement. Early Disciples found the term “sacrament” uncongenial mainly, I think, for historic reasons and preferred to speak of “ordinances,” that is, practices “ordained” (or commanded) by Christ as a means of making God’s saving action present and visible in the world. They understood the Lord’s Supper and baptism to be the chief ordinances; each uses material substances (bread, the fruit of the vine, water); and each is a visible sign and seal of God’s grace. Each ordinance, moreover, has its own particular grace, or special role in the plan of salvation: for baptism, it is the remission of sin unto newness of life in Christ; for the Supper, nourishing the faith and unity of believers. I have spoken elsewhere about the “starkly realistic nature” 12 of early Disciples’ sacramental thought and life, which was indeed rationalist (though never reductionist). Thus for Alexander Campbell “the Holy Spirit works upon the understand- ing and affections of saints and sinners...”13 so that Christians “must perceive, realize, appropriate, and feel the blood of Christ applied to our reason, our conscience, our will, and to our affec- tions.” 14 The Table is Christ’s; he is our host, and the whole church is invited to his Table; he is present; he enters into head and heart alike in a way that is tangible and has visible effects in our lives. If that’s not “presence,” and if it isn’t “real,” then I don’t know what is. 2.Developments within the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ): Through the mid-twentieth Century Thus by about 1840 or so the main outlines of this “populist sacramental” church were established, its most distinctive feature being the observance each Lord’s Day of the Lord’s Supper, presided over by elders, who used extemporaneous prayers at the Table. 15 But my topic is finally the encounter of the Disciples with the movement for liturgical renewal, and the early nineteenth-century Disciples of Christ church I have just de- scribed to you is not, of course, the same as that which encoun- tered the liturgical movement in the mid-twentieth century. To understand that church, and thus the significance of that encoun- ter, we must see how the Disciples developed over the hundred years or so from about 1840 to 1940 or 1950. In some areas of the church’s faith and life there was growth and development; in other areas there was growth. The “Restorationist” movement stemming from the Campbells, Barton Stone, Walter Scott and others had brought together diverse persons and viewpoints; as these leaders died, and the movement moved into its second and third generations, a fault-line became apparent between more “progressive” and more “conservative” wings. One fundamental problem was the interpretation of Scripture, particularly on the question of how to order the life of the church on matters not resolved by the first generation of leaders, and about which the New Testament was inconveniently silent. This came to a head on the question of how far musical instruments could be used in worship, since such use was not recorded in the New Testament. A second problem was the relation of local congregations to church structures beyond the local level, with some refusing to join cooperative institutions – even for reasons of mission – which were seen as threatening local autonomy. A third problem was the relation of the church to the state, with some pastors or congregations refusing to take actions which might be interpreted as seeking “recognition” by the state. By the early twentieth century the most conservative forces had left, coalescing to form separate churches carrying a different (and from a Disciples of Christ perspective more limited) form of the Campbell-Stone “Restoration” vision. Meanwhile the Disciples of Christ, through a series of specific decisions (all tending in a 11 Ibid. 12 T. F. BEST, “Disciples Identity and the Ecumenical Future,” Disciples Theological Digest 8, 1 (1993) 5-20. 13Millennial Harbinger (May, 1855) 258, emphasis mine. 14 Millennial Harbinger, Extra, No. 8 (October, 1935) 508; cf. Millennial Harbinger (December, 1855) 662. 15 “Breaking the Bread of Life...,” op. cit., 293-307.6 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 65 /Spring 2004 “progressive” direction) about the issues named above, had defined itself as a recognizably “mainline” denomination. But the pattern was different in different areas of the church’s life, and we need to consider a number of factors in more detail beginning, inevitably, with the Lord’s Supper. The conviction remained that, since the Table was Christ’s, the church had no authority to exclude anyone from the Table who had been claimed by Christ, that is, who had been baptized. The practice of elders offering prayers — usually one elder praying over the bread and one over the wine — continued. I say “wine” but in fact (reflect- ing the founders’ aversion to alcohol, based on their experience on the frontier) the use of unfermented grape juice continued as the norm. What did change — and for the worse — was the relation of the Table to the Word, that is, of the Supper to the sermon. Originally the sermon was dispensed with if no suitable elder or traveling evangelist was on hand; in any case the sermon was placed at the conclusion of the service, partly because there it could be more easily dispensed with if necessary. But with the gradual development of an ordained, professional paid clergy the sermon became the prerogative of the local pastor, and a fixed and necessary part of the Lord’s Day service. It remained at the conclusion of the service, but increasingly for a different reason: as a divine rhetoric, an evangelistic message reinforcing or calling out belief, the sermon increasingly replaced the Supper as the climax of the service. Furthermore, the ordained minister came to have a prominent role in the service of the Table itself. It became the norm for elders and deacons to be joined at the Table by the ordained minister, who would recite the words of institution from the gospels or 1 Corinthians 11, and perhaps give a brief meditation, before the Elders’ prayers for the loaf and the cup. The deacons would then distribute the elements to the congregation, which remained seated and passed the elements to one another. At best this sharing of leadership by laity and ordained clergy modeled the ministry of the whole people of God; and some Elders’ prayers reflected, in simple and beautiful language, a lifetime of growth into Christ. But often enough the elders’ prayers showed neither theological understanding nor spiritual depth, thus only reinforcing the dominance of the sermon which followed. Meanwhile the liberal theology of the first half of the twentieth century, and a general resistance to representational thought, diminished the sense of the sacred in worship and encouraged a commemorative understand- ing of the supper, as an event which evoked the lively memory, but not the actual presence (however understood), of Christ. In the case of baptism there is a two-fold story to be told. We noted earlier that Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell differed on the necessity for immersion, and in this case it was the stricter position of Campbell which prevailed generally in the church, at least until about 1900. This meant that persons joining a Disciples congregation who had been baptized, but in other ways, were normally expected to “complete their obedience to Christ” by undergoing full immersion. I hesitate to call this “re-baptism,” since the language of “completing” obedience implied at least the partial efficacy of the baptism which had already been received elsewhere. It was striking that the logic of Disciples’ eucharistic theology led to the practice of an open Table, so that many congregations which required full immersion baptism for mem- bership would nevertheless receive at the Lord’s Table persons who had been baptized in other ways. While full immersion remained, and indeed remains, the practice in Disciples churches for persons first entering the body of Christ, the attitude to a “re”- or “completing” baptism began to change from about 1900, with some congregations beginning to accept earlier the baptism of persons transferring membership from “non-immersion” churches. I am not sure of the reasons for this, but I like to regard it as representing a rebirth or reawakening of the early Disciples’ ecumenical conviction and zeal, which had faded somewhat as the Disciples consolidated their position as a denomination in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Perhaps this renewed sense of their vocation to unity came from the increasing ecumenical experience of Disciples, as they engaged with others in associations for practical Christian work (such as the Sunday School Movement around the turn of the century). Perhaps it came from the awareness of figures such as Peter Ainslie, who became a well-known proponent of the nascent Faith and Order movement world-wide. Perhaps it reflected the emergence of the Disciples as one of the principal actors in the formation of councils of churches at all levels from local to national. It would be a mistake to say that the “mind” of the church had fully changed on this issue by 1950, but there was certainly a growing reluctance to call into question baptisms duly performed in other churches. Other points in our profile can be noted more briefly. As mentioned before, this period saw the emergence of a profes- sional, salaried clergy understood as the, or a, leader of the local congregation. But that was precisely the question: was it “the,” or was it “a,” leader? The role of the elder was so deeply ingrained in Disciples’ ethos that there was no question of the professional ministry supplanting it. Yet the functions of the elder – who was ordained locally to oversee the life of a local congregation, including administering the Lord’s Supper and baptism and, if suited for it, to preach as well – were precisely those for which the professional clergy was being trained. It should be stressed that the pattern described earlier, with both elders and the minister active at the Lord’s Table – was understood as an enrichment of the church’s life, drawing on the gifts of both lay and clerical leadership. But the fundamental questions remained: what is the relation of pastor and elders, and what is the role of lay leadership in an age of increasing specialization and professionalization, in the church as everywhere else? A special word is in order about our use of liturgical books and resources. We produced our first authorized liturgical book – for voluntary use – in 1953. That is, through the whole period which we are presently considering there was no official, standard worship text. This followed from the fact that local congregations had, from our earliest days, been entrusted with the responsible ordering of their own worship, and from a reluctance to introduce anything other than the New Testament as authoritative in matters of faith and practice – including worship practice.N. 65 /Spring 2004Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 7 Yet there was, in fact, a discernible, distinctive “Disciples” worship practice, based primarily on two factors. The first factor was, inevitably, the widely-followed pattern of the Lord’s Supper observance (with minister and elders, as described above). The second was the hymnals published by Disciples which – through widespread use rather than official prescription – gave a consider- able measure of common worship experience throughout the whole church. The tradition began with Alexander Campbell’s own widely-used hymnal; 16 perhaps most prominent later on was Hymns of the United Church (1924, co-edited by C. C. Morrison and Herbert L. Willett), 17 whose title reflects the growing appeal of things ecumenical for many Disciples of that day. In this – and not only in this – the hymnals were prophetic forces in the life of the church: the next widely-used hymnal, Christian Worship, A Hymnal (1941), 18 was published by the Disciples denominational press together with the American Baptist Convention. A final point should be noted; it is implicit in my description of the Lord’s Day service as normative for Disciples, but may have escaped your notice. Simply put: Disciples, as they had developed through the mid-twentieth century and in contrast to the Reformed aspects of their heritage, had little idea of a service of the word in the classical Reformed sense, that is, a Sunday service including entrance, scripture reading, proclamation of the gospel and response, statement of faith and prayers of interces- sion, but stopping short of the sharing of Christ’s body and blood at the Lord’s Table. There were, of course, frequent and fervent small-scale occasions for prayer and meditation upon scripture, such as personal devotions or the prayers held by staff in church offices. These were understood to be sufficient unto themselves. But there were also occasions on which a more elaborate, but non-eucharist- ic service was called for, especially in inter-church and special ministry contexts, for example installation services for officers of councils of churches, services in institutional settings such as church camps or hospitals, or services in observance of special occasions in the life of the local community. Such services would normally include the reading of scripture and some form of response to it, but other elements, and their overall order, followed no fixed or classical pattern. And I think it is fair to say that most Disciples, attending a non-eucharistic service beyond the level of personal devotions, or of any complexity, would have felt that “something was missing” when the service did not include the Lord’s Supper. This was, then, in broad outline, the personality of the Disci- ples of Christ in the United States around the middle of the twentieth century: centered on the scriptures as the basis of faith and the life of the church; populist, that is, solidly middle-class and with a preference for direct, simple symbols; sacramental, with the center of the church’s life found, in each Lord’s Day worship, at the Lord’s Table service led by elders and (often) the minister — but less sacramental, perhaps, than earlier in our history as the sermon tended to overshadow the Supper; firmly committed to the baptism of professing believers by submersion, but increasingly ready to respect the practice of other churches; recovering its original ecumenical vocation; searching for the right relationship between professional pastoral leadership and the witness of elders; evincing a fervent piety, especially in personal prayer and congregational hymn singing; with a firm sense of order in worship, maintained not through prescribed worship texts but through widely-used hymnals and other worship resources. Worship had settled into nurturing, comfortable patterns and, I suppose, seemed likely to continue that way. 3.The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Liturgical Renewal – Developments since 1950 Fifty years later, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves as Disciples in the midst of a transformation in our self-understanding as a church. My own understanding is that this has been caused by, and expressed through, our engagement in two of the central movements of the Holy Spirit within the whole church in our times. Through interaction with these movements we have clarified our own identity as a church, come to a new appreciation of our strengths, and have learned to see where, perhaps, our own history has left us lacking in some things we need to be church fully and faithfully today. The first of these movements is the ecumenical movement. We came early to it – or, indeed, were born of it — as mentioned above; but particularly over the past fifty years ecumenical engagement has become a central part of the life of our church. Here I will simply mention a few examples of this: There is our engagement, from almost its beginning, in the Consultation on Church Union (now Churches Uniting in Christ) in the United States (indeed, two of the General Secretaries of the Consultation have come from our church). There is our seconding, since the 1970s, of an executive staff position in the Faith and Order secretariat of the World Council of Churches. There is our serious engagement with the Faith and Order convergence text Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. 19 There is our close partnership with the United Church of Christ in the U.S., to the extent that these two major denominations share one and the same, common board for overseas mission. There is our international bilateral dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, which has been of deep importance 16 In one form in use as early as 1834: see Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected (Bethany, Virginia: printed by A. Campbell, 1834), and Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected: Adapted to the Christian Religion (Carthage, Ohio: printed by W. Scott, 1835); later versions include The Christian Hymn Book: A Compilation of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected, by A. Campbell and Others (Cincinnati: H. Bosworth, 1968 [1865]). 17 Chicago: Christian Century Press, 1924. 18 Christian Board of Publication, St. Louis: Bethany Press. 19 For an early example in the liturgical context, see Keith Watkins, “The Lima Liturgy: When Theology becomes Liturgy,” Mid-Stream 23, 3 (1984) 285-289.8 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 65 /Spring 2004 to our own self-understanding.20 And there is the striking fact that we have encouraged Disciples-related churches around the world not to continue relating primarily to us as their missioning, or “parent,” church but rather to enter church unions, so that Disciples in the Republic of Congo, Thailand, Japan, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere would now be found not as a separate church body but as part of a united church. Perhaps it was this ecumenical contact with the larger church which made us more aware of the need for responsible ecclesial structures beyond the congregational level. In any case one of the most profound developments in our life was a process of “Restruc- ture” in the 1960s which established much clearer patterns of oversight at regional, and national, levels. A robust sense of local responsibility and initiative remains, but we are much more aware now that local congregations belong to the whole of our church – and to the whole of the whole church. Certainly the encounter with ecumenical theology has had serious consequences for our understanding of both the Lord’s Supper and baptism, as we will see in a moment. The second of the movements which is transforming our church is, of course, the movement for liturgical renewal. We should note at the beginning that our encounter with this move- ment was a very particular one, and perhaps quite different from that of other churches. To understand this we need to recall the intention of the liturgical reform movement, as stated well by Ellsworth Chandlee: “[The liturgical movement] seeks a recovery of those norms of liturgical worship of the Bible and the early church which lie behind Reformation divisions and medi- eval distortions, and which are fundamental to Christian liturgy in every time and place. It aims, however, not at an attempt to resuscitate the liturgy of the early Church in the twentieth century, but at the restatement of the fundamen- tals in forms and expressions which can enable the liturgy to be the living prayer and work of the church today.” 21 Thus the liturgical movement presented Disciples with an understanding of the sources of Christian worship which was broader than that of our own tradition and ethos. In particular it called us to an encounter with the worship not just of the earliest Christian communities as described in the New Testament, but required us to engage seriously with the worship traditions of the early Christian centuries, and indeed beyond. Thus it called us to an engagement with liturgical scholarship in the strict sense of the development of liturgies historically – but also with research on the psychological, sociological and cultural factors at play in the experience of worship. Let me give sketch the course of our encounter with the liturgical movement, indicating the main personalities involved and some results as reflected in worship materials produced in, and for, our church. Three persons have been central to the process. G. Edwin Osborn produced the church’s first “semi- official” worship book in 1953 (mentioned above). Osborn was a student of the psychology of worship, and favored “relevant worship” focused on themes of direct concern to the community, but stressed the importance of a sound biblical and ecumenical basis for worship. William Robinson was in the forefront of our recovery of the centrality of the Lord’s Supper, to which we come in a moment. Both Osborn and Robinson died in the 1960s, and since then it has been Keith Watkins who has led both in recover- ing our own distinctive worship heritage, and in our engagement with the liturgical movement. Watkins’ approach was through a series of liturgical studies aimed at renewing Disciples worship practice. The book Thankful Praise: A Resource for Christian Worship (1987) 22 sought “to strengthen Christian public worship and especially the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.” Its goals can serve as a summary of Disciples’ aspirations for their worship today: to connect our worship with the great tradition of Christian worship through the ages; to reflect liturgically the results of ecumenical convergence; to be faithful to the crucial features of traditional Disciples’ worship; to be sensitive to social injustice, especially in its anti- Jewish and sexist expressions; to enhance the beauty and diversity of worship through vivid, biblical and felicitous language; and by encouraging a healthy variety within our worship life. 23 In 1991, Watkins followed this book by Baptism and Belonging: A Resource for Christian Worship,24 which sought a parallel renewal in Disciples’ understanding and practice of baptism. This liturgical process has proceeded alongside a theological one, namely a study on our church’s ecclesiological self-under- standing begun by its Commission on Theology in 1978. Three of the texts from this study touch directly on worship: that on ministry (1985), on baptism (1987), and on the Lord’s Supper (1993). The overall report, issued in 1997, affirms that in worship the church makes “defining signs of its true identity” as it listens to scripture, proclaims the word, confesses sin and receives God’s forgiving grace, celebrates the sacramental acts of baptism and holy communion, and communicates in prayer with God.25 This is unfamiliar language for some Disciples, who still expect divine worship to be described more subjectively and in terms of pious 20 For the first series of discussions (1977-1982) see Apostolicity and Catholicity (Indianapolis: Council on Christian Unity, 1982); for the second (1983-1992), “The Church as Communion in Christ,” Mid- Stream 33, 2 (1994) 219-239; for the third (1993-2002), “Receiving and Handing on the Faith: The Mission and Responsibility of the Church (1993-2002),” Mid-Stream 41, 4 (2002) 51-79; the reports from the first and second series are also printed in Mid-Stream 41, 4 (2002) 80-95, and 96-114 respectively. 21 J.C. DAVIS, ed., A New Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship, 2 nd ed., (London: SCM Press, 1986) 314. 22 St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication. 23Cf. T.F. BEST, “Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Worship,” in P. BRADSHAW, ed., The New SCM Dictionary..., op. cit., 181. 24 St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication. 25 P.A. CROW, Jr. and J.O. DUKE, eds., The Church for Disciples of Christ: Seeking to be Truly Church Today (St. Louis: Christian Board of Publication, 1998) 56.N. 65 /Spring 2004Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 9 emotions warmly felt. Yet it is where Disciples find themselves today in their worship. Further, we realize that the theology study could not have come to its conclusions without the study on worship which ran parallel to, and in interaction with, it. One of the true gifts of the Spirit to our church in this process was that we not only have visionary liturgists, but also theologians, such as Paul Crow and James O. Duke, who understand that theologians need to listen to liturgists. Many of you will understand how precious that is. Now let me illustrate our encounter with the liturgical renewal movement, and the ecumenical movement, by looking in more detail at a number of specific issues. A.The Lord’s Supper We have experienced, I think, a dramatic renewal of Disciples’ eucharistic practice and theology in the past 30 years. Today we would understand the eucharist as a public act in which the church, having heard the procla- mation of the word, partakes of Christ’s body and blood, thereby remembering God’s reconciling initiative in Jesus Christ, celebrating the gift of the Spirit upon the Church, and anticipating the coming reign of God. The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, an expression of Christ’s body and blood in the visible signs of bread and wine. The host is the Lord, and the whole church is invited to his Table. The Supper has immediate social consequences; sharing at Christ’s table compels the church to work in order that all may have “bread and enough” to eat. The Lord’s Supper is central to the faith and piety of Disciples, who refer to themselves as “people of the chalice.” 26 The service suggested in Thankful Praise includes the classic dimensions of gathering, proclamation of the word, response to the word, coming together around the Lord’s Table, and sending forth. The Lord’s Table service includes an invitation extended “upon Christ’s behalf for all baptized believers,” an offering, the classic Disciples feature of elders’ prayers over the loaf and cup, responsive prayers, the institution narrative from scripture, the breaking of bread, the Lord’s prayer, an expression of peace, the sharing of the elements (normally by passing the loaf and cup through the congregation, which remains seated), and a final prayer. We noted above the Disciples’ drift, through the first half of the twentieth century, towards a restricted “memorial” view of the supper in which Christ was more a memory than an actual presence at the Table. Thus one of the central challenges posed to us by the liturgical and ecumenical movements was the recovery of the biblical notion of anamnesis, of an active remembering which brings into the present the power and effective action of a past event. But as we tackled this question, we remembered that we had resources from our own tradition: thus our great early evangelist and theologian, Walter Scott, had spoken of baptism and the Lord’s Supper as “the crucifixion, or death, burial and resurrection of Christ, repeating themselves in the life and profession of the disciples” 27 – and, he might have said, of those who down the ages have followed. The liturgical and ecumenical movements, then, helped us to recover something which had been central to our own identity as a church, but which we had lost through a forgetting of our past, and an accommodation to the surrounding culture. We have recovered the true meaning of the words traditionally carved across the front of the Lord’s Table in most Disciples’ churches: “do this in remembrance of me.” Another challenge posed to us was the recovery in the liturgical movement of the social sense and significance of worship, a recovery of the awareness that the liturgy led to, demanded, and was the source of, the “liturgy after the liturgy,” namely our Christian service in the world. Recall from the ecumenical movement the famous statement in Baptism, Eucha- rist and Ministry: The eucharist embraces all aspects of life...The eucharistic celebration demands reconciliation and sharing among all those regarded as brothers and sisters in the one family of God and is a constant challenge in the search for appropri- ate relationships in social, economic and political life...All kinds of injustice, racism, separation and lack of freedom are radically challenged when we share in the body and blood of Christ... 28 Some claimed that, if we took this liturgical and ecumenical insight too seriously, it would introduce “the world” into worship, threatening to divide congregations on social issues. But then we recalled words of Alexander Campbell himself, who had written the following: The Lord says to each disciple, when he receives the symbols into his hand…”For you my body was wounded; for you my life was taken.” 29 and then continued: Each disciple in handing the symbols to his fellow-disci- ples, says in effect, ‘You, my brother, once an alien, are now a citizen of heaven: once a stranger, are now brought home to the family of god. You have owned my Lord as your Lord, my people as your people. Under Jesus the Messiah we are one. Mutually embraced in the Everlasting arms, I embrace you in mind: thy sorrows shall be my sorrows, and thy joys my joys.’ Joint debtors to the favor of God and the love of Jesus, we shall jointly suffer with him, that we may jointly reign with him. Let us, then, renew our 26 T.F. BEST, “Eucharist. Christian Church,” in P. BRADSHAW, ed., The New SCM Dictionary..., op. cit., 181. 27 W. SCOTT, The Messiahship; or Great Demonstration (Cincinnati: H. S. Bosworth, 1859), 284. 28 Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry, “Eucharist,” paragraph 20, Faith and Order Paper, 111 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982). 29 A. CAMPBELL, The Christian System..., op. cit., 273.Next >