2 - 2001
Protestans and Catholics in Germany
Ecumenism as a Commitment for Our Churches
by Joachim Wanke
The great challenges which our society presents to our churches are in themselves reason enough why it is imperative that the churches in Germany speak together in addressing the issues of our time. They must also preserve and build up the ecumenical cooperation which already exists in Germany. This conviction on the part of many Christians is expressed in this article by the Catholic diocesan Bishop of Erfurt.
The ecumenical situation in Germany is better than in other places. This assessment is based on reasons connected with the "location” of Germany. First of all, we have no majority church in Germany. This is good for ecumenical relations, at least between Protestant and Catholic Churches. Second, since a long time we don’t have a church with official state authority anymore.
The freedom of the church from the state is guaranteed. This freedom had been fought for with bitter sacrifices in the 19th as well as in the 20th century. Each citizen lives according to his or her own self-understanding, to the best of his or her abilities. Each person can be himself or herself. This freedom is the fundamental pre-condition of honest ecumenical relations.
Finally, the natural presence of immigrant churches as well as the grown world-wide networks of our churches make us aware of Christian diversity. Neighbours who are different offer us a chance to widen our horizons. Ecumenism in general is benefiting from this. In Protestant and Catholic congregations there are good local ecumenical relations, with some regional exceptions. But these exceptions prove the rule that today Christians wanting to be Christians respect their baptised fellow Christians. Furthermore: they deliberately seek signs of nearness and togetherness. The increasing marginalisation of Christians in society reinforces this attitude of closing of ranks among Christians at the local level.
Pushing for fellowship at the Lord’s table is not just meant to annoy church leaders. Admittedly, some of the pushing is meant to be provocative, and sometimes it is based on naive theological reasoning, but the desire is understandable and according to John 17 and 1 Cor 10-12 it is even commanded. The people of God are the legs of the ecumenical movement. These legs should walk only in the right direction, towards unity and not toward new divisions.
Of course there are always irritations within the ecumenical movement. The Roman statement Dominus Iesus was wounding, and a struggle is still going on within Protestantism against the success of the Lutheran-Catholic agreement on the doctrine of justification. We have to reckon with such forces from all sides. What will be important is that a majority in the churches stays with the ecumenical movement.
I maintain that the global horizon of today’s world, in which the various religions rub up against one another more and more closely, compels us Christians to get together as a necessity. In the third millennium the Gospel must be proclaimed by all of us together, or else its voice will be lost from the world’s conversation.
Our togetherness will not be uniform, but its polyphony must have form, and the melody must be clearly recognisable. This alone is reason enough why there is no alternative to ecumenical cooperation. Catholic Church has recognised this as well. Despite all the backwards and forwards of the forces in my church, it remains committed to the goal.
We are in the process of new reflections on the nature of the church. According to my understanding, the Christian faith is never abstract. It has an incarnational structure. It wants to become "flesh”, just as the second person of the Trinity did not become a principle, but an actual human being. There is no such thing as ecumenical Christianity floating in the air, but only a Christianity concretising in the churches. Therefore it does not contradict ecumenical actions when ecumenism leads us to discover one another’s, or better, our own origins in a new and deeper way. I have learned to recognise more deeply what is connecting us all together at the roots: we are 2000 years old together.
We need, and I would vote urgently in favour of, a new agreement on the nature of the church, for example as it is presented to us in Ephesians, but I would think also in John 10 and 17 and also implicitly in Matthew 16 and 18, and finally also by Paul himself. It must include an agreement, similar to the one on the doctrine of justification, on ministry in the church. This would have less to do with ministry itself, meaning how it should be structured, than with the issue of whether the church can speak authoritatively or not.
The controversy over Dominus Iesus has taught me one thing: we must urgently clarify how each side sees itself as church, starting with our common roots in the Scriptures and in the tradition of the great councils of the first millennium. It is not a hopeless task to search together for the really essential constitutive elements of the church, to reach agreement on these through a well-differentiated consensus, and thus reach, perhaps, a reconciliation in diversity, a unity of being church together which does not exclude diversity. The idea of communio or koinonia, which Orthodoxy has preserved and which we in western Christianity have newly rediscovered, can and will take us forward, and will be useful in preventing any idea of going backwards ecumenically.
The churches are getting together on the common defence of that which is human. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Germany has just published a statement on the issues of genetic engineering and bio-medicine. It is entitled "Human being – it’s own creator?” I think that in these and many other important issues of social policy as well, there is a welcomed consensus between the Evangelical Church in Germany and our church.
I have mentioned this most recent initiative only as an example of a task which increasingly requires urgent action. The churches are being asked, in the current social and spiritual situation of our country, how they can help defending humanity. It therefore becomes even more important that we answer together, as Protestants and Catholics together.
Many other initiatives besides common texts could be mentioned here, for example the jointly sponsored "Week For Life” which we have held annually, for several years, in May: the theme for this year was "Nursing in dignity!” My advice to my church, to our churches, in view of so many other developments which are partly frightening, is this: Wherever the church does not neglect the task which is most of all its own, namely to keep the horizon open towards God, and whenever it presents its message understandably, with quality, with kindness and translated into its own commitment, it will remain truly "salt” for our society.
And especially to our two churches, I would say, tasks which we accomplish together create ties that bind. Friendship grows and deepens by solving tasks together, not by examining and measuring each other. The joint Kirchentag in 2003 in Berlin can be a real opportunity for ecumenical relations in Germany. But the slogan for this occasion should not be "Let’s see what we can get away with, with one another”, but rather "Let’s look at what we need in this country, namely new ways to ask about God!”
The above extracts from a speech by Dr. Joachim Wanke, Diocesan Bishop of Erfurt, at a meeting of the Protestant study group of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union [national and Bavarian political parties] on 16 March 2001 in Christ Church in Fulda, are published with the kind permission of the editors of the journal "Evangelische Verantwortung (Protestant Responsibility)”. Articles bearing the author’s name do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the journal’s editors.