PROGRESSIVE CONVERGENCE

Because of my personal spiritual journey, throughout my active ministry I have been involved in the ecumenical movement. Back in the day – the late Sixties, Seventies and the early part of the Eighties – ecumenism was at least on the back burner of most denominations and, for some, on the front burner if only heated by the pilot light.

One of the leaders in the movement was the late Roman Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles. He believed that Jesus’ prayer “that we all may be one” would someday become a reality. He knew it would take much time, certainly, for this unity to become realized given that Christianity has been divided for over a thousand years when the Eastern Church broke away from the Western Church. The Reformation only made the break and the division wider and more difficult to mend.

Nevertheless, Dulles believed in, taught and preached what he called a progressive convergence. He believed that if the churches kept working at ecumenism, stressing what we hold in common more than what divides us, if they were sincere in the belief that this is what Jesus wants of us, in God’s good time, progressively we would converge into one church. If only.

It did not happen. It has not happened. And we are probably further away from unity than we were when the ecumenical movement really took off in the late Sixties. We are not converging as much as we are diverging. Added to that, less and less people are attending church let alone joining one. Yes, the so-called mega churches are springing up all around the country. Unfortunately, the central figure in the majority of these churches is the charismatic pastor and not Jesus. This is not sour grapes as it is the simple truth.

I suspect Dulles is not rolling over in his grave so much as he must be grieving because it is the church’s fault that we are more divided than we have ever been. What is worse, in my humble opinion, is that our society, the world over, reflects this continuing division. The church is supposed to be the institution that models what God wants us to be: one in heart and mind and spirit. If we cannot as spiritual leaders get our act together, is it any wonder that our political leaders are so at odds one with another?

None of this sounds in any way optimistic and it is not. Our leaders in Church and State have failed us. But maybe we have failed them as well. We’ve certainly failed God. Real change, and becoming one is one of those real changes, comes not from the top down but from the bottom up. Unless and until those of us who are followers speak up and speak out, our leaders will continue to look out for Number One. And that is not one as in unity but one as in oneself.

Convergence is a possibility and a Gospel demand. Do we believe in the possibility and what will we do to make it a reality?