(WCC News) “We need to emphasize time and again the sense of mutuality and interdependence as the basis of relationships between Christians”, said Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa, convener of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN). This is especially important at a time when “denominations are increasingly worried with internal, identity-centred issues and therefore risk a credibility crisis”, she added.
Te Paa was speaking at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland, after a meeting of the APJN members with staff of the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Student Christian Federation on Monday, 15 March.
“We all tend to claim our differences in ways that prevent us from acknowledging our commonalities, so that within the churches, the fidelity to our denominations becomes more important than our higher fidelity to our oneness in Christ”, said Te Paa. “Only a theology of mutuality can help us to transcend this through a truly ecumenical attitude”, she concluded.
“We need to emphasize time and again the sense of mutuality and interdependence as the basis of relationships between Christians”, said Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa, … just like EcUSA/TEc and the AcOCanada have done.
I wonder to what degree has a “theology of mutuality”, which doesn’t pay sufficient attention to truth claims, lead to the credibility crisis. It seems to me that “Catholics and Evangelicals Together” is a helpful model.
The $64,000 question is whether we can be faithful to our oneness in Christ when we so clearly reject Him (if you love Me, you will keep my commandments) and reject the transformative grace that He gives.
Dr. Stroud (#1),
You beat me to it. I was immediately struck by the irony, indeed absurdity, of Dr. Jenny Te Paa’s statment calling for a sense of “interdependence” among Christians when she herself has flagrantly argued to the contrary that the Global North provinces are fully autonomous and shouldn’t feel bound by the Windsor Report that she helped draft from going ahead with pursuing “justice” for gay persons in their own western cultural contexts.
I note that the so-called Anglican Peace and Justice Network that she heads is there in Geneva to lobby the UN agencies located there. That’s rich. What a great way to promote justice and peace, through the UN (sic)!
And Phil (#2),
I agree with you wholeheartedly. The “Catholics and Evangelicals Together” model pioneered by Chuck Colson and the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus is FAR more promising, since it doesn’t sweep crucial theological differences under the rug, but does insist on key elements of Christian orthodoxy as non-negotiable essentials. The WCC form of ecumneism, dominated by theological and political liberals like Te Paa, is a total waste of time.
David Handy+
[blockquote]We need to emphasize time and again the sense of mutuality and interdependence as the basis of relationships between Christians”, said Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa[/blockquote] What an absurd statement! The basis of relationships between Christians [i]is Christ[/i]. I swear there must be a cave deep below the earth where they grow idiots for the Anglican Communion.
Only the ones fed on American(ism) a la the EcUSA/TEc and kept in the dark.