Ecumenical & Interfaith
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100 Years of the Ecumenical Movement

 

The year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1910 World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland, effectively marking 100 years of the modern ecumenical movement worldwide."The unexpected intuition to flash forth from the [Edinburgh] conference was the awareness that Christian disunity is destructive to the very mission of the Church, and the corresponding search for Christian unity began," says John Gibaut, director of the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission. (ENI #10-0040). The year 2010 is a time to remember Edinburgh 1910, celebrate the work of mission and ecumenism in the twentieth century, and be inspired to commit ourselves to working together in the twenty-first century. Planners urge local/regional study/action to accompany the national and international attention to this centenary.

 

Major Events for Ecumenists

January 18-25, 2010 around the world: Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

The theme of this year's Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, "Witnessing to Christ Today," comes directly from the theme of the Edinburgh centenary celebrations. The materials were prepared by the churches of Scotland at the same time that they were preparing for Edinburgh 2010.

June 2-6, 2010 in Scotland: "Edinburgh 2010: Witnessing to Christ Today"

Approximately 250 invited Christian leaders from around the globe will participate in the main centenary conference in Edinburgh on June 2-5, 2010. The final celebration on Sunday, June 6, 2010, however, will also be open to some 800 visitors who have requested and received tickets. It will be held at the site of the 1910 conference — the Church of Scotland's General Assembly Hall — from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. Register interest in being a guest by sending an e-mail. Additionally, there may be informal events in local churches in the evenings for which the events listing on the web site will provide information. Plans for virtual participation through live streaming, Twitter, and other technologies are under consideration and will be announced. See a brochure intended for those who want to set up something in the spirit of the Edinburgh conference.

The words “Edinburgh 1910” describe both the event and a process, the two of which are interconnected. The conference will be a culmination of nearly a decade of preparatory study. An independent international council has met to make major decisions.

While Edinburgh 1910 was a mainly male, essentially Protestant event for North Atlantic Christians, the centenary delegates will exhibit the broader representation of a "wider ecumenism," including:

• The whole range of Christian traditions and confessions, among them the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the World Evangelical Allilance
• Better gender and age balance, 50% of the delegates being women and 20% under age 30
• An intentional bias toward the global South by appointment, 60% of the conferees being from there in keeping with the church's shifting "center of gravity"
• Both older mission movements of the global North and new mission movements of the global South and East

November 9-12, 2010 in the U.S.: NCC-hosted assembly in New Orleans

A gathering marking the centennial of the modern ecumenical movement will take place on November 9 through November 11, convened by the National Council of Churches (NCC) in New Orleans. Participants will include representatives from the World Council of Churches, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and local and regional ecumenical organizations. The theme will be "Witnesses of These Things: Ecumenical Engagement in a New Era."

A consultation on local and regional ecumenism will be held on Friday, November 12 in New Orleans, following the assembly. This event is being planned by the National Association of Ecumenical and Interfaith Staff (NAEIS), the executives of state ecumenical agencies/councils, and the NCC ecumenical networks committee. Planners include Presbyterians Arlene Gordon, Carlos Malave, and Rebecca Tollefson. Those not able to attend from Tuesday through Friday, may consider attending on November 11-12 in order to participate in discussions about the future of the broader ecumenical movement as well as the future of local and regional ecumenism. Board members and judicatory leaders are welcome to attend. More details are forthcoming.
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Other events: three mission conferences

Events in Tokyo, Capetown, and Boston are considered, with the event in Edinburgh, to be the principal four celebrations by those concerned about mission as the primary focus of the 2010 centenary. A paper co-authored by the late Ralph Winter, who was a PC(USA) minister, concludes, "All four meetings are part of a process of reflection and activism that will likely continue beyond 2010."

May 11-14, 2010 in Japan: Tokyo 2010

A global mission consultation in Tokyo on May 11-14, 2010,will lay out priorities of the future with the 'Lausanne Covenant' (which resulted from the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelisation held in Lausanne, Switzerland) as its basis. The conference is sponsored by the Asia Missions Association, the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association of North America, the Global Network of Mission Structures, and the Third World Mission Association.

October 16-25, 2010 in South Africa: Congress on World Evangelization

The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) and the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) will partner to conduct the next International Congress on World Evangelization, known as "Lausanne III," in Cape Town, South Africa on October 16-25, 2010. Learn more about recent Lausanne movement issue-based gatherings.

November 4-7, 2010 in the U.S.: 2010 Boston

Just as Edinburgh 1910 was followed by a similar meeting in Boston, so a Boston conference, "The Changing Contours of World Mission and Christianity," will be part of the 2010 celebrations. Sponsored by the Boston Theological Institute consortium, it is geared to seminary students and faculty from all over the world, but particularly in the schools of the Greater Boston (USA) area. The goal is to discern a vision for what might constitute mission in the twenty-first century, mission that stands in the trajectory of Christian witness from the earliest days of the church and is inclusive of matters relating to human flourishing, reconciliation, faith in the future, and conducive of religious liberty. A call for papers from graduate students has been issued, papers to be due by April 1, 2010. One of the themes for papers is "Mission Theology in a Pluralist World."

For other events, see a list prepared earlier by the Edinburgh 2010 research coordinator.

Local celebrations

Churches in Britain and Ireland have issued an invitation, "We invite you to mark this momentous occasion in your local church and community. It might be a special event or linked into an already existing local program." Events they suggest groups of Christians around the world might hold to observe their own local celebration "of joy, thanksgiving, and commitment" include:

• a joint service with other worshiping groups in your area
• community-wide outreach
• service to the community carried out with other churches

See the Edinburgh 2010 web site for steps you might follow. Read, too, about ways you might encourage local involvement in the Edinburgh 2010 study process. Note that the Facebook consultation process is primarily completed but the postings are still available for reading -- or even for adding unofficial new contributions.

Local groups ready for sophisticated thinking may find a paper on Mission in Humility and Hope, prepared by an international group, helpful to their own processes. It lists key issues and questions that are discerning and penetrating.

Resources for personal and group use

 

Because the 1910 Edinburgh conference has been viewed as the starting point from which the modern emphasis on both unity and mission are inherited, the connections between the two today become an important theme. The major instrument for preparation has been a round of "commissions" organized around nine mission themes (named in the picture above). See an early listing of the participants on each of the nine groups studying the nine themes, together with descriptions of their plans. See a record of their work on the Edinburgh 2010 web site. The extensive web site is being facilitated by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Another new resource for looking at the eight commissions that reported to Edinburgh 1910 is the book edited by the late David Kerr and Kenneth Ross, Edinburgh 2010: Mission Then and Now, ISBN #978-0-86585-013-2. Ross has also authored Edinburgh 2010: Springboard for Mission, ISBN # 978-0-86585-008-8, which analyzes the many streams of development in global Christianity which flowed from the first Edinburgh conference.

PC(USA) leader Marian McClure Taylor (pictured above left), now executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, served as associate director of the Edinburgh 2010 organization and mobilized North American representation in the process during much of the preparatory phase.

See also papers from "Towards 2010" events in Scotland and the October 2006 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

Ecumenical input into the Edinburgh 2010 process

Results of WARC/LWF mission conference to be reported in Edinburgh

Sharing stories of how they interpret mission today, participants at a November conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina, compared the witness of their grandparents around 1910 and that of their own time. The results of their study are to be shared at the 2010 conference in Edinburgh. The Buenos Aires conference participants had been a part of a project studying "Mission Today" under the auspices of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Lutheran World Federation. They came from Argentina, Cameron, and the Netherlands, where local projects had explored what "mission" means in their countries from the perspective of persons from a variety of churches . Read the account of what they shared. See a video with short contributions of participants.

Youth media contest deadline extended

The deadline for an Edinburgh 2010 Youth Multimedia Contest has been extended to February 28. Projects should engage in the contest theme in diverse forms of media—including but not limited to—video, photos, music, painting, drawing, sculpture. The winner receives a sponsored invitation to the Edinburgh conference. See the contest flyer.