Another Word

Ecumenical?

I’ve been attempting to describe the meaning of this word to one of my friends for a month now. The first time I ever heard the word was when I was a missionary intern in Europe. I was asking to the missionary I was working under why they didn’t do some joint outreach projects with the charismatic churches down the road, who happened to be the largest evangelical group in the city. As of that point they would play basketball together, but serving together was a whole other story. He said he had played with such “ecumenical” thought for a while, but then rejected it since eventually it meant he had to give the same respect to Hindu’s and Jews as well. I nodded my head at the time and agreed completely. Those were my fundamentalist days; I stood firm rejecting ecumenicalism outright.

Two years later I figured out what ecumenical actually meant and proceeded to wonder why it was such a bad thing. Fundamentalism had instructed me firmly that it was evil just like Disney was evil. Yet something seemed askew in this line of thought. At about this same time I learned that heaven was actually large enough to house Baptists and Methodists along with my entire church (note: I did not say denomination), meaning that either denomination could in reality end up there at some point. It was a ground-breaking time. . . . oh, and that brings me back to the point at hand, what does it mean to be ecumenical?

Basically, the whole idea is closely linked to globalization. Back in the day one could refer to the Western world as the “Christian” world. One could also assume that everyone in India was Hindu. All Arabs were Muslim. All Asians were Buddhist, except for the Chinese who were. . . well, Chinese. And, Christians could raise a plea to go convert the poor ignorant souls in that place, wherever that was. Today is different. The question remains quite profound to me, why are we sending people to Asia, to convert the Buddhist(?) Asians, if we have more Asians right here in our own country than we know what to do with, and select few have even briefly considered Christianity. In fact today it is redundant to point out that few “Westerners” are still Christian in any traditional sense, and as a matter of fact, they happen to be among the least religious people on the planet. And, thus, the cliché goes, “If you want to be a foreign missionary, walk across the street.”

Used to be, Christians were able to go and declare the rightness of our religion in opposition to the ridiculous wrongness of theirs. This sort of good, Bible-based preaching would be just the spur in the saddle which would covert the billions of lost souls to the only true religion, heck, the only religion that religion that wasn’t completely ridiculous . . . right? right? If that didn’t get them we’d simply point out that they were one step away from eternal mortification by fire at the judgment of a God who paradoxically was neither evil, nor vindictive. Needless to say the only conversions that resulted from this were those of the children of such missionaries, from Christianity to anything else.

The truth is that this sort of religious attitude uses ignorance as its prerequisite. It’s easy to think that Muslims are bad people needing conversion, until you meet a Muslim who is a better person than any Christian you have known. Even then it is easy to think he still needs to be converted, until you look at the world through his eyes, realizing that if he were to even think about Jesus being equal to God he is in danger of Hell, according to the Qur’an. Then realize that he has seen the Way of Submission change people to the core. Within his own faith he has seen the same good results that Christians offer him. Yet most Christians would never listen long enough to see Islam this way. Furthermore, we often seek to discredit the good of their religion. The Buddhist speaks of the peace he knows by following the eight-fold path, but we claim the only real peace is by the Holy Spirit . . . his must be a fake peace. . . obviously . . .

Ecumenicalism is a step beyond the ignorance that keeps humans from seeking to understand each other. It starts out with the recognition that my religion is not the only one capable of experiencing God. Because of this, their faith might just have something to teach me. Also, it’s necessary to point out quickly, this is not the same thing as pluralism. Pluralism, first, is simply a fact. Other religions exist, and we can’t continue to treat them like they are inferior solely because they adhere to a different faith. But, pluralism is also a referral to the laziness that is so common in postmodern thought. As though all religions are the same, which is one of the most idiotic ideas that a person could ever claim. Ecumenicalism is not pluralism. In fact, pluralism is ultimately incompatible with ecumenicalism. I can be ecumenical and still hold firmly to my belief in Jesus as Savior. I cannot though assume that the religion that follows Jesus is the only religion that has had a true experience of God.

If God is who we say he is, then he is seeking to be known by all of humanity. Therefore, a Buddhist can teach me a lot about God. And even more revolutionary is the idea that a Buddhist can teach me a lot about how to be more Christian than I have been. It is not pluralism because I do not assume my Buddhist friend is OK. His faith too, can be challenged by mine, but this is a far cry from assuming I am right and he is wrong: as though by wearing Christ’s name I am the only one whose experience of Divinity is not completely false.

Regardless of our differences, we can still maintain respect, and that is in line with the core of all the major religions. The fact is that we now live in a world where no religion is truly a world away. Rather within a mile of my apartment there are Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, secularists, Hindus, and pagans. If I begin conversation with these people with our differences in mind, I will never be worth their time, nor will I shed the least twinkle of the light of Christ on them. This is what the ecumenical idea has realized.

So, to put it concisely, ecumenical implies an open-mindedness to challenge and be challenged through respectful dialogue between different faiths. This does not imply that we’re all the same, but rather that all of us can learn from each other. It means seeking first the common ground where we work as one to heal the broken world, instead of using our dogmas to fracture it further. It means that God is not so small that he only has time to reveal himself through Christianity.