RITE AND REASON: The Methodist Church agreed a draft covenant with the Church of Ireland at its recent annual conference. Dennis Cooke reflects on the issue of Christian unitygenerally
The story of Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman by the side of Jacob's well at Sychar (John 4:5-14, the gospel reading chosen as the key passage in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity last January) may have had a significance and challenge which the Christian church today is unwilling to face.
Rather than skirting around the region of Samaria on his way to Galilee, and thereby avoid meeting people with whom the Jews had had hostile relations for centuries because of racial and religious purity, Jesus went through Samaria, meeting the Samaritan woman on his journey.
His meeting and conversation with her has significance for Christians because in it Jesus sweeps away conventional barriers, those between Jew and Samaritan and those which degraded the position of women, since a rabbi at that time would not have been seen talking in public even to his wife or daughter.
The significance of this for relationships between Christians is momentous. Do the barriers between denominations influence how frequently Christians worship or share in common witness together? The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is possibly one of the few occasions when Christians come together in a common act of worship and sense, to some degree, the mystery of that oneness which Jesus prayed for for his disciples.
Those who shared in such common acts of worship in January were few in number, but after it we returned to our denominational dug-outs, the trenches which have imprisoned our foreparents in the faith for centuries.
We attempt to worship Jesus within our separate Christian communions. We appear to be content with the barriers that exist between us. We feel safe and secure. Indeed, if we are honest, there is sometimes a strong element of triumphalism within our separate Christian communions. We exist at times as if we have no need of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Is this the kind of Christianity Jesus wants for his church? Did that oneness for which he prayed mean different communions in which we are largely isolated from each other and seldom, if ever, pray for each other?
Have we misunderstood what the Christian church really is? Have we lost the vision of what the Nicene Creed describes as "the one holy catholic and apostolic church?" The creed was written in the fourth century, but it is still relevant today. Most of us affirm our belief in the words of the creed, but do we really mean them?
Do we pray and work for the visible expression of this oneness? We may not know what form that visible expression will take, but do we seek it, pray for it? Too many jump to the conclusion that oneness means a uniformity which denies diversity, but who ever suggested that?
William Temple, one of the greatest archbishops of Canterbury, once declared: "I believe in the one holy catholic and apostolic church and sincerely regret that it does not at present exist." However, the fact that it did not exist did not stop him working and praying that it would come about.
When Dominus Iesus was published in 2000 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome there was an outcry by many within the Protestant churches at the suggestion that these were "not churches in the proper sense".
They thought they had been insulted, disregarded. I have to say I agree with Dominus Iesus. Protestant communions of local churches are not "churches" in the proper sense. But neither is the Roman Catholic Church a "church" in the proper sense. Both Lumen Gentium (Vatican II) and Dominus Iesus say: "There exists a single church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church".
The word "subsists" by definition suggests imperfection. So, in a real sense it is true to say that the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church "are not churches in the proper sense".
If we interpret John 4 correctly it is a challenge to examine the denominational barriers erected between us. Are these barriers Christ-made or human-made? Do they commend the gospel or hide it? Have we hidden behind the title "Church" and forgotten that the church is in a state of schism? Do we need to rethink our theology of the church and confess that we may have got it wrong? These are questions we need to answer.
The Rev Dr Dennis Cooke is principal of Edgehill Theological College in Belfast