Published Online: Jun 16, 2020
Page range: 181 - 189
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/holiness-2017-0004
Keywords
© 2017 David M. Chapman, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
The bitter theological legacy of Reformation controversies ensured that Methodists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries adopted a strongly anti-Roman Catholic stance. Well into the twentieth century, Methodist catechisms and scholarship invariably maintained a polemical stance against Roman Catholic doctrine, actual and supposed. That Methodists and Roman Catholics in fact have much in common in the way they describe holy living in terms of growth in grace towards entire sanctification is therefore a comparatively recent discovery, as a result of mutual engagement and reassessment through theological dialogue.
The immediate origins of formal theological dialogue between Methodists and Roman Catholics lie in the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), which was attended by a number of accredited observers from other world communions, including the World Methodist Council. The principal Methodist observers at the Second Vatican Council, Albert Outler (United States) and Harold Roberts (Great Britain), took advantage of the unprecedented opportunity afforded by their status to engage with the Roman Catholic bishops and theological advisers assembled in Rome for the purpose of bringing up to date the formal teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. See Albert Outler,
Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that the Second Vatican Council signalled the start of a new era in relations between Roman Catholics and other Christians after centuries of mutual condemnation stemming from sixteenth-century Reformation controversies in the West and the Great Schism between East and West in 1054. However, this was far from clear at the time due to the prevailing ecclesiastical climate of mutual suspicion and distrust, reinforced by disquieting memories of the authoritarian and centralising outcome of the First Vatican Council (1869–70). Both beforehand and during the early sessions, there was widespread suspicion in Protestant circles that Pope John XXIII's real intention in summoning a Second Vatican Council was to reassert the exclusive claims of the Roman Catholic Church and its prohibition on all forms of ecumenism other than that which urged the ‘separated’ Christians to return to the Church of Rome.
Yet, despite attempts by the curia to impose a conservative theological agenda, commentators began to note progressive voices among the bishops and the emergence of a fresh way of describing the Roman Catholic Church in terms that accepted the ecclesial reality of other Christian communities. Correspondingly, conciliar teaching was expressed in more nuanced theological language than had previously appeared to be the case in the polemical exchanges between the Reformers and their opponents. Convinced, therefore, that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council provided a starting point for a fruitful conversation across the Reformation divide, Albert Outler made determined efforts to persuade key figures in the World Methodist Council that the prospect of a formal theological dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church presented a unique ecumenical opportunity to address historic differences between Methodists and Roman Catholics.
The World Methodist Council meeting in London in 1966 duly accepted an invitation from a renamed and enhanced Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity to appoint representatives to a joint international commission for theological dialogue. National bilateral dialogues between Methodists and Roman Catholics were subsequently established in the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia (now Uniting Church–Roman Catholic dialogue). These dialogues are beyond the scope of the present article. For a detailed study, see David M. Chapman,
The fiftieth anniversary of Methodist–Roman Catholic dialogue at a world level happens to coincide with the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses protesting against the sale of indulgences. Whether Luther actually nailed the text to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, on 31 October 1517 as is popularly supposed, his Ninety-Five Theses set in train a series of events that ignited the fires of Reformation and division in Europe. To mark its own jubilee in October 2017, the joint commission will assemble in Rome for a series of commemorative events, including an audience with Pope Francis, arranged jointly by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Methodist Ecumenical Office, Rome. The recent establishment of a Methodist Ecumenical Office in Rome under its director, the Revd Dr Tim Macquiban, was made possible by the deepening relationship between Methodists and Roman Catholics, as a result of the improved ecumenical climate to which bilateral theological dialogue contributed.
Since 1967, there have been ten successive rounds of conversations, each timed to coincide with the five-yearly cycle of World Methodist Council meetings. At the conclusion of each round, the joint commission issues a substantial report to its sponsors in the form of a convergence statement. In common with the practice in other bilateral dialogues, these reports are not authoritative statements on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church or the World Methodist Council but instead are published by the joint commission for study and reception among Methodists and Roman Catholics. The text is available electronically on the Vatican and World Methodist Council websites; earlier texts can be found in the
The work of the joint commission has been incremental, building painstakingly on the secure theological foundations established in successive rounds of dialogue. The initial phase of the dialogue between 1967 and 1976 produced two reports registering outline agreement on a range of topics: the
Between 1977 and 2001, a second and more systematic phase of dialogue focused on aspects of core Christian doctrines in order to establish a secure theological framework in which to develop a convergence in historically divisive issues. The title of each report signifies its particular subject:
Between 2002 and 2011, a third phase of dialogue produced two substantial reports on ecclesiology. For the exchange of gifts, see David M. Chapman, ‘A Methodist Perspective on Catholic Learning’, in Paul D. Murray (ed.),
The treatment of ordained ministry in
Since 2012, a new phase of dialogue has begun to focus more closely on the Christian life as experienced in its corporate and personal dimensions.
On 31 October 1999, after years of theological dialogue and the last-minute addition of a clarifying annex, representatives of the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity signed a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), which encompasses ‘a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification and shows that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations’ (JDDJ, §5).
But to what extent is it credible to claim that Reformation controversies have been resolved and are no longer church-dividing? Responding to the JDDJ shortly afterwards, Geoffrey Wainwright posed a question that remains pertinent in this 500th anniversary year of Luther's protest against the sale of indulgences: ‘Is the Reformation over?’ Geoffrey Wainwright, Wainwright, In 2017, the World Communion of Reformed Churches also signed a declaration of association with the JDDJ.
If, to a certain extent, unfinished theological business remains from the Reformation, what has been the achievement of ecumenical dialogue with Roman Catholics in the past half-century? In 2009, shortly before his retirement as President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, Cardinal Walter Kasper summarised the ‘fruits’ that can be ‘harvested’ from the bilateral dialogues between the Roman Catholic Church and the major traditions in the Western Church – Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran and Reformed. Walter Kasper,
Cardinal Kasper also identified a number of areas requiring further dialogue: the need for a common theological language; fundamental hermeneutical problems; a shared theological anthropology; and the sacramental nature of the Church. To these, the present author, writing in a personal capacity, would add a number of other issues for future dialogue between Methodists and Roman Catholics:
the participation of the ordinary faithful in authoritative discernment in the life of the Church by virtue of their baptismal vocation to share in the ministry of Christ; the ordained ministry in relation to the ministry of the people of God and the service of all the baptised; the mutual relationship between the saints below and the saints above within the communion of saints and the way in which the benefits of Christ apply to the faithful departed as members of his body, the Church; the role of personal the structural implications of a shared belief that the Church itself is a means of grace; universal primacy and the Petrine ministry of the Bishop of Rome as pope.
As things presently stand, the future agenda is sufficient to keep the joint commission in work for at least another half-century: theological dialogue is a long haul. Meanwhile, the commission's next report is scheduled for presentation to the World Methodist Council meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2021. Continuing to focus on the Christian life in its corporate and personal dimensions, the commission has chosen as its theme for this current round of dialogue the question of how Methodists and Roman Catholics respectively live out their reconciliation ‘in Christ’ in the Church and how together they can proclaim a gospel of reconciliation to the world involving peace, justice (social and economic) and the integrity of creation. The theological framework in which the joint commission will approach its work is that of the reconciling work of God in Christ (2 Cor 5:18–20).
Addressing the question of reconciliation ‘in Christ’ will involve giving attention to the nature of Christian community, the bonds of communion and the structures of unity. Thus the topic chosen for the 2021 report is closely related to that of the previous report (Houston, 2016). As the joint commission noted in that report:
The call to holiness is also a call to unity in the Church, the body of Christ. Jesus prayed for his disciples to be sanctified in the truth that they might all be one (John 17.17, 21). Holiness and Christian unity belong together as twin aspects of the same relationship with the Trinity such that the pursuit of either involves the pursuit of the other.
As long ago as 1986, the joint commission proposed that the goal of theological dialogue between Methodists and Roman Catholics should be nothing less than ‘full communion in faith, mission and sacramental life’ (Nairobi, §20). This goal has been restated subsequently in several reports, most recently in
But what of the long-term prospects for sustaining an international theological dialogue between Methodists and Roman Catholics in the face of competing demands for scarce resources and other priorities such as evangelisation and the urgent need for interreligious dialogue? To advocate continuing theological dialogue between the different Christian traditions in the style of the classical Faith and Order movement is to swim against the tide of so much contemporary ecumenism, which regards shared mission as a sufficient goal. If cooperation in mission is all that matters, theological dialogue becomes redundant. Elsewhere, I have argued that the related concept of ‘reconciled diversity’ does not adequately express the ‘full visible unity’ of the Church. See David M. Chapman, ‘Ecumenism and the Visible Unity of the Church: Organic Union or Reconciled Diversity?’, For Methodist ecumenical method, see David M. Chapman, ‘The Methodist Contribution to Ecumenism’, in Paul McPartlan and Geoffrey Wainwright (eds), For Methodist ecclesiological method, see David M. Chapman, ‘Methodism and the Church’, in Paul Avis (ed.),