After a month in Finland studying, reading and reflecting at the Polin Institute, Turku, I have been thinking about the core of our work as staff members at Churches Together in England.
The raison d’etre of our work as ecumenical diplomats is to be rooted, I think, in a ministry of compassion. We know that our work is all about relationships. It’s our soft power, our relational capital which is our greatest strength. But for this relational capital to have real potency, I believe it needs to be established in a ministry of compassion. In the work of Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen, compassion is born out of solitude and silence. In this solitude and silence, which was lauded by the desert fathers in the 4th century, comes an understanding of our own vulnerability, weakness and brokenness. In solitude and silence we are confronted by own our sinfulness. Nouwen says, “compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. As busy, active, relevant people we want to earn our bread by making a real contribution. This means first and foremost doing something to show that our presence makes a difference. And so, we ignore our greatest gift which is our ability to enter into solidarity with those who suffer.”
For me, this is at the heart of my ecumenical calling and resonates with some of my other writing on Koyama, the intercultural, and a need to reassess our pursuit of power and pace. In Nouwen, we find a call to solidarity, to non-judgementalism, a new commitment to non-partisan ‘being with’. True ecumenism by its very nature is inclusive and conciliatory. It is committed to making sure as many confessions and traditions are at the table as possible. It can only do this effectively by a renewed commitment to the idea that the ecumenical movement is continually incomplete without the voices of those who we may normally wish to sideline or silence for whatever reason. It is rooted in a commitment to walk together regardless. We have experienced the woundedness of Member Churches threatening to leave CTE over issues of human sexuality in the past. Yet as Nathan Söderblom has said, “there is no biblical mandate to withdraw from those who have not withdrawn from Christ.”
So, whilst on one hand, full unity is already a received gift in Christ as head of the church, it is also provisional. Paradoxically our ecclesiastical diversity and inclusion is both our greatest strength and one of our main weaknesses. This makes us vulnerable and at times it can make us appear weak. Because our posture should always be conciliatory, open-handed, embracing of the other there will be moments where this seems like weakness, or delusion or vacillating.
To live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Christ is to value them simply because they reflect the imago Dei we encounter in all human beings. To practice a compassionate ‘being with’ is to value those called to the ecumenical sphere not simply because they happen to represent a particular member church or organisation or charity but because they are called to be with us, to practice koinonia, in prayer, worship and discussion when we gather. This in many ways is a pastoral ecumenism – an ecumenism of the heart. It is, I believe the way of Christ. This is precious in a world that is likely to become more ideologically fractured, more anxious and more hostile to gentleness and mercy. To live out an ecumenism of compassion will go some way to healing the wounds that exists between our churches and traditions in the coming years.
Rev Dr Ben Aldous is the Principal Officer for Mission and Evangelism at Churches Together in England (CTE). After five years at CTE, Ben took a month-long sabbatical at the Polin Institute, Turku. Ben spent 16 years in Cambodia and South Africa, first as church planter and later as a parish priest. He is the author of The God Who Walks Slowly (SCM Press, 2022) and is a research fellow at the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham.