By Beth Newman
Since 2006, representatives from the Baptist World Alliance have held annual meetings with counterparts from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Each year has had a central focus and the dialogues have concerned, successively, Scripture, tradition and the role of the Virgin Mary. A document will be produced out of the final meeting in 2010 to share with the respective denominational groups.
The 2009 meeting, held in Rome this past December 13-18, took up the question of “Oversight and Primacy in the Ministry of the Church.” Some may well wonder what Baptists and Catholics have to say to each other, especially about “primacy” (referring to the primacy of Peter or the pope). Adherents of both traditions have entertained stereotypes about the other. I recall thinking as a child that Catholics were not quite Christian because they worshiped Mary and believed in works-righteousness (both of which are not actually Catholic teaching). And I have been with Catholics who regarded Baptists as followers of a different faith.
Mindful as we are of the real division between Baptist and Catholic Christians, we must be more mindful still of the prayer of Jesus that all his disciples be one. And we must remember that such unity is essential to God’s salvific intentions for the world. “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21). It is the privilege of all Christians, as God’s adopted sons and daughters (Rom. 8:15-17), to share in the communion that the Son has with the Father, a gift given by the Spirit for the sake of the church and the world. Such triune communion is not uniformity but rather enhances the gifts that members give and receive from one another.
Participants at the recent Baptist-Catholic dialogue at the Vatican pose for a group photo.
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The challenge in ecumenical conversation is how to receive the gift of unity in the midst of our present brokenness. As with any physical illness, it will not suffice to ignore the wounds or pretend that the “other” is not really a part of the body (I Cor. 12). Rather, healing occurs by attending to the wounds, but seeking to do so in a way that heals. This involves seeking together the mind of Christ. As is true in particular congregations or denominations, so also is it true in the church universal: reconciliation is not merely a human work, but rather is possible through Christ — who gives us all the “ministry of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:18).
Even so, reconciliation can be a daunting — even discouraging — task. At one point in our recent conversations, for example, I wondered how Baptists and Catholics could ever come to a meeting of minds concerning “oversight” (episkope in Greek)? For Catholics, “oversight,” of course, involves the pope and the College of Bishops, while for most Baptists such offices can seem alien, if not unnecessary (though some 17th-century Baptists did have bishops).
I must confess it was my own discouragement that led me to ask our guest, Cardinal Walter Kasper (president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity), what he saw as challenges to the future of ecumenism. He first identified larger social problems (secularism, environmental degradation, hunger, poverty, etc.) that Christians must learn to face together. But then he focused on the challenge of hope, which he described as an impulse of the Holy Spirit. And he added, “patience (as the poet said) is the little sister of hope.” I was fascinated that the cardinal did not name specific theological issues (the papacy, the Virgin Mary and so forth) but focused on a theological virtue. Hope has been called the virtue of the “not-yet.” Through hope, we live not in the minus sign of an anxious “not-yet” that has to be removed but rather, as Karl Barth said, by the plus sign of an “already.” Hope enables us to see that God is already giving the church what she needs to be faithful, even as we wait and seek the not-yet of the fullness of God’s reign.
To return to the topic of oversight, while Baptist and Catholic practices are in many ways far apart, those gathered in Rome acknowledged that both traditions already share the conviction that a faithful “watching over” of the church is not authoritarianism. Episkope is, rather, a holy calling for the sake of safeguarding and building up the witness of the whole church. This might seem a relatively small convergence, but even small steps toward acknowledging our common faith, hope and love are ways that God unites the church, even in the midst of our present divisions.
