"The world needs people with Christian passion, spiritual commitment, theological competence and persistence to recapture and rearticulate a biblically well-grounded ecumenical vision and what it implies for the unity of the church in the context of world Christianity in the decades to come." -- Olav Fykse Tveit, General Secretary, World Council of Churches *** In an era when life itself is imperiled, Christians around the world are challenged to authentically bear witness to the God of life and to justice and peace. Ecumenical Visions for the 21st Century - prepared as a core resource for theological reflection - equips Christians to discern and develop relevant and responsible insights in many arenas of Christian engagement. The anthology includes 44 key documents from the last two decades of ecumenical work, most in full texts. It illuminates the changing face and features of world Christianity, with particular focus on Asian Christianity and Christianity in Korea, and it highlights important ecumenical convergences in Christian unity, mission, advocacy, and service. Additionally, the book presents the latest and best ecumenical thinking about Christian engagement on issues of justice and peace, poverty, the economy, education, gender, climate change, migration, HIV and AIDS, and interreligious encounter. A full bibliography and CD-ROM with 20 supplemental readings are also included.

The Catholic Church is on the threshold of a bold new era in its two-thousand year history. As the curtain comes down on the Church defined by the 16th-century Counter-Reformation, the curtain is rising on the Evangelical Catholicism of the third millennium: a way of being Catholic that comes from over a century of Catholic reform; a mission-centered renewal honed by the Second Vatican Council and given compelling expression by Blessed John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The Gospel-centered Evangelical Catholicism of the future will send all the people of the Church into mission territory every day -- a territory increasingly defined in the West by spiritual boredom and aggressive secularism. Confronting both these cultural challenges and the shadows cast by recent Catholic history, Evangelical Catholicism unapologetically proclaims the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth of the world. It also molds disciples who witness to faith, hope, and love by the quality of their lives and the nobility of their aspirations. Thus the Catholicism of the 21st century and beyond will be a culture-forming counterculture, offering all men and women of good will a deeply humane alternative to the soul-stifling self-absorption of postmodernity. Drawing on thirty years of experience throughout the Catholic world, from its humblest parishes to its highest levels of authority, George Weigel proposes a deepening of faith-based and mission-driven Catholic reform that touches every facet of Catholic life -- from the episcopate and the papacy to the priesthood and the consecrated life; from the renewal of the lay vocation in the world to the redefinition of the Church's engagement with public life; from the liturgy to the Church's intellectual life. Lay Catholics and clergy alike should welcome the challenge of this unique moment in the Church's history, Weigel urges. Mediocrity is not an option, and all Catholics, no matter what their station in life, are called to live the evangelical vocation into which they were baptized: without compromise, but with the joy, courage, and confidence that comes from living this side of the Resurrection.

Receptive Ecumenism is a ground-breaking new ecumenical approach, widely regarded as having the potential to revitalise the Ecumenical Movement. But what is Receptive Ecumenism? Why is it important? In Receptive Ecumenism and the Renewal of the Ecumenical Movement, Antonia Pizzey offers a comprehensive, systematic analysis of Receptive Ecumenism. While still emerging, Receptive Ecumenism is highly promising because it prioritises the need for ecclesial conversion. Pizzey explores the scope and complexity of Receptive Ecumenism, providing much-needed clarity on its aim, key developmental influences and distinctiveness, as well as its virtuous character and relationship with Spiritual Ecumenism. The major implementations of Receptive Ecumenism to date are investigated, along with its significance for the future of ecumenism, especially regarding its engagement with contemporary challenges.

Das Attribut "katholisch" wird in vielen Kontexten als Konfessionsbezeichnung einer bestimmten Kirche missverstanden. Die in diesem Band vorgelegten Vorträge der 18. Wissenschaftlichen Konsultation der Societas Oecumenica beleuchten die ökumenische Bedeutung der "Katholizität" die alle Kirchen im Glaubenbekenntnis bekennen. Dabei werden auch die Spannungen zwischen Einheit und Viefalt sowie die Herausforderungen durch neuere Entwicklungen in der weltweiten Christenheit in den Blick genommen. In many contexts the attribute "catholic" is misunderstood as a confessional term describing one specific church. The papers of the 18th Academic Consultation of Societas Oecumenica presented in this book give insights to the ecumenical significance of the "catholicity", which all churches confess in the Creed. They also take into consideration the tensions between unity and diversity as well as the challenges by new developments in worldwide Christianity.

What would a theology of the Church look like that took seriously the fact that North America is now itself a mission field? This question lies at the foundation of this volume written by an ecumenical team of six noted missiologists—Lois Barrett, Inagrace T. Dietterich, Darrell L. Guder, George R. Hunsberger, Alan J. Roxburgh, and Craig Van Gelder. The result of a three-year research project undertaken by The Gospel and Our Culture Network, this book issues a firm challenge for the church to recover its missional call right here in North America, while also offering the tools to help it do so. The authors examine North America s secular culture and the church s loss of dominance in today s society. They then present a biblically based theology that takes seriously the church s missional vocation and draw out the consequences of this theology for the structure and institutions of the church.

Warum feiern die verschiedenen christlichen Kirchen das Abendmahl immer noch getrennt? In der Auseinandersetzung um diese Grundfrage des ökumenischen Dialogs spielen immer wieder zwei Begriffe eine wichtige Rolle: (gegenseitige) Anerkennung und Rezeption (Aufnahme/Annahme). Es geht letztlich um die Anerkennung der jeweils anderen Kirchen als Ausdruck oder Form der einen Kirche Jesu Christi. Diese ist aber nur möglich, wenn alle beteiligten Seiten sich in einem Rezeptionsprozess die gemeinsam formulierten Einsichten zu eigen machen. Der Band dokumentiert die Vorträge der 19. Wissenschaftlichen Konsultation der Societas Oecumenica (Europäische Gesellschaft für ökumenische Forschung), die sich aus verschiedenen Perspektiven und mit verschiedenen Ansätzen mit diesen beiden Begriffen und ihrer Bedeutung bzw. ihrem Potenzial für die ökumenische Bewegung befassen. Why do the different Christian churches still celebrate the Lord's Supper separately? The discussion about this fundamental issue of ecumenical dialogue keeps coming back to two concepts that play an important role: (mutual) recognition and reception. In the end, it is about recognition of the other churches as an expression or form of the one church of Jesus Christ. This is only possible, however, if all the parties involved accept, within a process of reception, the insights they have formulated together. This volume documents the papers given at the 19th academic consultation of Societas Oecumenica (European Society for Ecumenical Research), and which deal with these two concepts from different perspectives and approaches and their importance or potential for the ecumenical movement.

The ambivalent role of religions in contemporary conflicts has generated an increasing call for faith-based peacebuilding endeavours. In Pathways for Theology in Peacebuilding: Ecumenical Approaches to Just Peace, Sara Gehlin discusses the ways theology can provide essential resources for such peacebuilding pursuits. The pathways for theology in peacebuilding are investigated with regard to a recent faith-based peace endeavour, namely the creation of an international ecumenical declaration on just peace. In the book, Gehlin explores the meaning of a just peace from the perspectives of theological ethics, biblical interpretation, spirituality, and ecumenical vision. On the basis of this exploration, the book maps out theological resources for peace in our time.

How do Christological Perspectives differ and which specific ways of witnessing Christ exist depending on cultural, geographical and confessional context in which they developed? Theologians from Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, Oceania and Europe discuss these questions focussing on the missiological implications of various contextual Christologies. They aim to answer the question if contextual and confessional provenience coins the epistemological preconditions in a way that creates, shapes and secures peculiar identities.

Contemporary theologies of mission rely on the central concept of the missio Dei, which states that mission properly belongs to the triune God over the church. However, present accounts fail to establish any corresponding link between God’s trinitarian economy and ontology. In other words, the problem of the missio Dei is the problem of the break between the act and being of God. Benjamin H. Kim argues that a repair is needed for missio Dei theology, and this repair is found in reexamining Barth’s doctrine of revelation. In doing so, the locus of mission moves from God’s trinitarian sending to his trinitarian revealing. The repair is further advanced by Dietrich Bonhoeffer through his concept of person, which functions as the unity of act and being. This account returns mission to its original definition, which was intended to describe the inner-trinitarian being of God in relation to humanity. The concept of person recovers this meaning of mission by locating it first in the person of Christ and second, in the collective person of the church existing as the Christ community. Thus, Bonhoeffer’s description of revelation in terms of personhood provides and account that is more faithful to the missio Dei’s core insights.