ecumenical
Gabriel Fackre, 'ecumenical evangelical' theologian, dies at age 92
Fackre was influential in the formation of the United Church of Christ and wrote the five-volume work The Christian Story.
The pastors of Richland County
Our two ministers associations merged. Our differences don't stop us from working together.
by Larry Engel
Why are there so few megachurches among ecumenical Christians?
To keep the evangelical belief system intact, a person needs to be a part of the subculture. You need to be surrounded by like-minded people who can look past scientific realities, uphold a separate role for women, and give unquestioned support to the GOP.
Church with a clean slate
"Co-creating is a lot of fun," says Jenn DiFrancesco. She and her Slate Project colleagues don’t show the same sort of weariness church planters often display a couple years in.
Worship for the Whole People of God, by Ruth C. Duck
Ruth Duck takes a balanced approach to liturgy. Her aim is not to champion a single style but to offer a foundation for reflection.
reviewed by Marlene Kropf
An ecumenical mind
Jeffrey Gros, one of the liveliest and most penetrating ecumenical thinkers I ever encountered, died earlier this month. A conversation with Jeff was always illuminating as well as a bit disorienting, for he had the many voices of global Christianity freshly cataloged in his brain.
The culture of the mainline
For Elesha Coffman, the pre-1960 Century is a window on the gap between an educated elite and a mass population of churchgoers.
Why not a eucharistic anti-gun event?
A number of activist organizations are declaring March 15-17 "National Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath Weekend."
It's not clear if this is meant to replace The Brady Center's "God Not Guns Sabbath," which has been observed on the last weekend of September for a number of years. But the organizers seem eager to keep the event broadly ecumenical and interfaith.
From ignorance to engagement: Scott Anderson on interfaith relations in Wisconsin
"I hope the shootings in Oak Creek will lead to interfaith education around the state," says Scott Anderson, director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. "There is a hunger for this kind of engagement."
by Amy Frykholm
Rename the mainline?
In a recent interview with the Century, historian David Hollinger talks about his preference for the phrase “ecumenical Protestants” to describe non-evangelical mid-20th-century American Protestants, instead of the more frequently used terms “liberal” and “mainline.”
“Ecumenical” refers to a specific, vital and largely defining impulse within the groups I am describing. It also provides a more specific and appropriate contrast to evangelical. The term evangelical comes into currency in the mid-century to refer to a combination of fundamentalists and Holiness, Pentecostals and others; ecumenical refers to the consolidation of the ecumenical point of view in the big conferences of 1942 and 1945.
I appreciated this shift in vocabulary because I have long disliked both the terms “liberal” and “mainline” to refer to whatever-kind-of-Protestant it is that I am.
Embattled Ecumenism, by Jill K. Gill
Jill Gill has produced a remarkable account of the declining influence of mainline Protestantism and the NCC in the 1960s and 70s.
reviewed by Randall Balmer
Culture changers: David Hollinger on what the mainline achieved
"Ecumenical leaders of the 1960s took a series of risks," says historian David Hollinger, "asking their constituency to follow them in directions that many resisted."
by Amy Frykholm
Unsettled issues: The Protestant-Catholic impasse
The broken communion evident at any eucharistic service is an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible state of affairs.
Table manners: Unexpected grace at communion
In Bosnia, I was reminded that the God who shows up at communion is a God who brazenly seeks us out of the crowd.