3 of 3

No. I don't think that the promise of ecumenism is institutional ecumenism. In other words, I think that's a 19th- and 20th-century idea that has been tried and failed. That's the old ecumenism. The new ecumenism will be a grassroots, Holy Spirit-led local expression of the unity of the body of Christ so that local persons, not just priests or ministers, but laypeople in Nigeria, for example, and laypeople in Singapore, where [we see] this spirit is emerging. There are many other places.

How will a new pope have to deal with the Catholic Church in the United States, which goes its own way a lot of times?

You've got to keep in mind that there are only 80 million Roman Catholics in North America. There are a half a billion in South America. We in North America have the mistaken idea that God has worked through European and American voices and instruments in history in such a way as to make it seem like that will continue in the future. But it won't, really.

For example, the possibility of a North American cardinal being elected pope is just almost nil. There's a good reason for it. The North American church is not … really commensurable with the basic thrust of Catholic history, but also Christian history. In other words, our high degree of secularism, consumerism, feminism, et cetera—that whole spirit—has affected North American views of what the Roman Catholic Church should be in a way that just really doesn't reflect what God is doing in the church in the world.

I've heard that that evangelicals and Catholics get along very well in North America precisely because of some of those secularizing factors, whereas in areas where the Roman Catholic church is more traditional and stronger, relations are not so good.

That's a very good point. Indeed, there are ongoing, severe conflicts in South America particularly between Pentecostals and Catholics, where in virtually every village, every city, they are competing for members. And really, the Pentecostals and the evangelical Protestants in South America are making tremendously powerful, huge inroads into Catholic populations in cities. It's understandable that the Catholics would view that as a kind of threat, more seriously than in other places.

Even the late pope himself called the Protestant groups "sects."

Well, he also, in his ecumenical encyclical, made it clear that he viewed the inheritors of the Protestant traditions as Christian brothers and invited a re-examination of the papacy itself in light of the interaction between Protestants and Catholics. That's clearly a part of his agenda and his concern.

Let me just go back to your question about why the ecumenical dialogues have grown and expanded in North America more quickly than they have elsewhere. There is just a great vitality for this. I think the Spirit is at work in the North American church as well to bring this conversation into greater palpability.

But, the strength of the church worldwide is not in these conversations as such. It is in the preaching and sacramental life of ordinary laypeople. That is where I think something amazing is happening our time that really does involve and will, in fact, transform or is in process of transforming, these institutions that we call Catholicism and evangelicalism. They will not be the same 100 years from now as they are today. And we will see what a mighty work the Spirit has done in our time.

Copyright © 2005 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  3 of 3

share this page

April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49