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The Pentecostal participants in these dialogues have made it clear that if NCC fingerprints are on the next step of recovering ecumenism, they will not participate. Evangelicals in the mainline must say the same with clarity.

Evangelicals within the mainline long for a deeper expression of the unity we share in our confession of Jesus Christ as the only Lord. We lament the divisions that ecumenism itself has caused and continues to reinforce. We long for the broken body of Christ to be made whole, but not apart from moral teaching on marriage and the family that honors God. Evangelicals lament the lack of unity at the Lord's Table. But such efforts will not be blessed by God if they begin with a wrong step.

The organizations that compose the Association for Church Renewal see little of the repentance required to begin such a journey. They will have their first grassroots meeting in Indianapolis on October 24-26, and we will then see how the reconfiguration of evangelically informed ecumenical vision will more realistically develop.

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Also appearing on our site today:

Whither Christian Unity?The WCC and WEA represent very different paths. One of them has real promise.

'CCT's Proposed Theological Basis Is Solidly Orthodox'

"An Invitation to a Journey" is available on the NCC website.

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August 5 2002, Vol. 46, No. 9