What was learnt in the 1980s and 90s about reception? The eighties were the heyday of the publication of ecumenical documents. After years of conversations—decades in some cases—the 80s saw the publication of the results of many conversations important among them: Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), The Final Report of the Anglican-‐Roman Catholic Commission (ARCIC), God’s Reign and Our Unity (GRU) from the Anglican-‐Reformed conversations, agreed statements from the Methodist-‐Roman Catholic conversations, and Anglican-‐Orthodox documents. In most cases the churches had already been involved in the maturing of these documents because
1 The Official Report of the Lambeth Conference, 1998, ed. M. Dyer, Moorehouse Publishing, 1998, p.264.
drafts had been shared with the churches inviting comments. In some senses they were already ‘our documents’ whether we realised this or not. That was certainly true of BEM and ARCIC.
Although times are very different today and we cannot apply exactly what we did in the 80s to the present, it is instructive to review how the British churches responded to the ecumenical harvest of documents. What follows is largely an account of the response of the Church of England.
i) Response to BEM
The publication of BEM coincided with the publication of The Final Report of the Anglican-‐Roman Catholic International Commission.1 This provided a unique opportunity for the Church of England to study the two documents together. BEM, coming from the broadest ecumenical forum that exists, provided an important overarching context in which to situate the substantial agreements on Eucharist and ministry reached by Anglicans and Roman Catholics in ARCIC.
This helped to give confidence that agreements in the bilateral and multilateral arenas were not contradicting one another, even if the ARCIC agreements could be said to go further than those of BEM.
To help the response process there was:
• intensive study for more than six years in parishes, in diocesan and deanery synods;
• a variety of study guides were produced including a guide for Sunday school children;
• thousands of copies of a popular ecumenical guide were used in ecumenical study groups;
• the texts were discussed in theological colleges, Queens Birmingham among them. And some colleges—the Cambridge Federation for example—sent student reflections directly to the Faith and Order Commission in Geneva;
• at national level the British Council of Churches sponsored a multilateral discussion of BEM, believing that a text produced in
1 The Final Report of the Anglican-‐Roman Catholic International Commission, GS 661, CTS/SPCK, London, 1984.
an ecumenical context is best reflected on in an ecumenical context;
• bilateral conversations about BEM took place between Anglicans and Methodists, Reformed, Baptists and members of the Society of Friends. Representatives attended each other’s Synods when the matter was on the agenda;
• at European level the Conference of European Churches organised a meeting to compare responses of churches in Europe;
• and at international level there was a Bilateral Forum on the world-‐wide response process to BEM called together by Faith and Order.
• The official response of the Church of England was made by the General Synod. There was a Sunday afternoon discussion when Standing Orders were suspended and Professor Henry Chadwick introduced BEM and ARCIC in magisterial fashion. This was followed by two major debates in later Synods which were guided by the reflections of the Church of England’s Faith and Order Advisory Group in its substantial report, Towards a Church of England Response to BEM and ARCIC. The results of the discussions and voting in the dioceses and deaneries were reported to the Synod.1 The Church of England’s final response was based on widespread discussions. At the end of this intensive study the verdict was that members of the Church of England were able to recognise in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry ‘the faith of the Church through the ages’. This did not imply that every point in the document is expressed in exactly the terms Anglicans would wish to use, or that there were not areas concerning the doctrines of baptism, Eucharist, and ministry that needed further reflection if consensus was to be reached. Indeed, the report to the Synod drew attention to these areas. As well as affirming the theological direction of the report, the Church of England also saw that to recognise in BEM ‘the faith of the Church through the ages’ carried with it challenges for the
1 Towards a Church of England Response to BEM and ARCIC, CIO Publishing, Church House London, 1985 and The Church of England’s Response to BEM and ARCIC, Supplementary Report, GS 747, The Ludo Press, 1986.
renewal of its own internal life, as well as for its relations with other Christian communities. Throughout the debates an important distinction was made between the initial official response at the level of synods and a much longer and more spiritual process of reception that must follow. The Church of England noted that this reception process cannot be hurried.
More and more people at all levels of the church’s life must be drawn into the reflective and interpretative process, so that agreements reached first by theologians, and then affirmed by synods, become part of the life of the whole people of God.1
• the responses of all the provinces of the Anglican Communion were collated and the summary presented to the bishops gathered at the 1988 Lambeth Conference. The Conference expressed the mind of the Anglican Communion to both BEM and ARCIC in official resolutions of the 1988 Lambeth Conference.
ii) BEM and renewal in the Church of England
In response to the second question which invited churches to consider what changes were required in their own lives, BEM did have an effect on the renewal of the internal life of the Church of England.
• It affected the revision of liturgical texts. At a meeting of the General Synod a layman asked the Revision Committee whether the liturgical texts that the Committee had put before the Synod were consonant with BEM on the Eucharist! The liturgical texts were later brought back and were consonant with BEM. Whether members of the Church of England are conscious of it or not, Sunday by Sunday, the theology of BEM (which was deemed to express ‘the faith of the Church through the ages’) is now a part of all our Christian formation through participation in the regular worship life of the Church of England.
• It was in the area of the threefold ministry that BEM had the most significant influence in the Church of England. A report on the diaconate commissioned by the House of Bishops made extensive reference to the position of BEM noting as important BEM’s view that while no one pattern of ministry is to be found enshrined in
1 Towards a Church of England Response to BEM and ARCIC, p. 9, para.19.
the New Testament itself, nevertheless, because it became the generally accepted pattern early in the life of the Church and because it is still retained by many churches today, ‘it may serve today as an expression of the unity we seek and also as a means of achieving it’ (BEM 22). This was shortly after a Church of England report on deacons had called for abolishing the diaconate. It would be too much to claim that BEM had saved the diaconate.
But the bishops did note that BEM upheld a threefold order.
However, the bishops agreed that the diaconate was in need of reform. BEM’s stance on the diaconate helped to confirm the view that if Anglicans were to commend the order there was need for a more credible expression of the diaconate.1 A subsequent report of a Working Party of the House of Bishops on deacons called for a distinctive diaconate alongside the so-‐called ‘transitional diaconate’.2 It made extensive reference to BEM’s view of the ministry of deacons claiming that BEM marks something of a watershed in ecumenical work on the diaconate.
• It is well known that the catholic and evangelical wings of the Church of England have held different understandings of the priesthood of the ordained ministry. BEM, together with ARCIC, provided the Church of England with an incentive to seek agreement among its own members on the nature of the priesthood of the ordained ministry. In 1986 a substantial report on the priesthood of the ordained ministry was prepared for debate in the General Synod.3 It found helpful the distinction made in BEM between the unique priesthood of Jesus Christ, the priesthood of the whole Church, and ordained ministers who ‘are related, as are all Christians, both to the priesthood of Christ, and to the priesthood of the Church’. It quoted BEM’s assertion that ordained ministers ‘may appropriately be called priests because they fulfil a particular priestly service by strengthening and building up the royal and prophetic priesthood of the faithful
1 Deacons in the Ministry of the Church, A Report Commissioned by the House of Bishops, GS 802, Church House Publishing, 1988, p. 69ff.
2 For such a time as this: a renewed diaconate in the Church of England, GS 1407, Church House Publishing, 2001.
3 The Priesthood of the Ordained Ministry, GS 694, CBF, 1986.
through word and sacraments, through their prayers of intercession, and through their pastoral guidance of the community’.1 The final chapter of the report set out what it called
‘a contemporary expression of the priesthood of the ordained ministry’ which endorsed many of the insights of BEM.
• A substantial report of an Archbishops’ Group on the episcopate was published in 1990 which once more shows the influence of BEM on the Church of England’s re-‐thinking of the office and role of a bishop.2 Two matters in particular proved important. The first was the way in which BEM understands the nature and functions of a pastoral leadership in ‘three planes’ of the Church’s life. The bishop has a role in relation to the local community, in uniting the local church to the communion of all the churches, and the local church to the historical continuity of the apostolic church.
Paragraphs 26 and 27 of the ministry section of BEM which speak of the personal, collegial and communal dimensions of ministry have proved to be especially creative in helping Anglicans to understand the place and role of the ordained ministry, in particular the episcopate, in sustaining the communion of the Church as bishops exercise their ministry personally, collegially in the college of bishops and, together with priests and laity, communally, focused in the gathering together of synods. At a time when Anglicans were struggling to understand the worldwide Anglican Communion and how it coheres, BEM provided a template to interpret the personal ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury; the collegial gatherings of Lambeth Conferences and meetings of the Primates; and the communal gatherings of the Anglican Consultative Council bringing together bishops, clergy and laity. The ministry section of BEM gives confidence to Anglicans in developing further their own structures in the light of the threefold dimension described in BEM.
1 Ibid. p.82.
2 Episcopal Ministry: The Report of the Archbishops’ Group on the Episcopate, Church House Publishing, 1990.
• In its work on apostolicity and succession the House of Bishops picked up the convergence of BEM.1 The bishops endorsed BEM’s suggestion that: ‘Churches which have preserved episcopal succession are asked to recognise both the apostolic content of the ordained ministry which exists in churches which have not maintained such succession and also the existence in these churches of a ministry of episkope in various forms. Churches without the episcopal succession … are asked to realise that continuity with the Church of the apostles finds profound expression in the successive laying on of hands by bishops and that though they may not lack the continuity of the apostolic tradition, this sign will strengthen and deepen that continuity.
They need to recover the sign of episcopal succession.’ The bishops also welcomed BEM’s view that episcopal succession is not ‘a guarantee of the fidelity’ of the Church to the teaching and mission of the apostles but rather ‘serves, symbolises and guards continuity’.
These are just some brief examples to show how in reflecting on the areas of liturgy as well as the understanding of sacraments, ministry and the structures of the Church, the Church of England has in recent years turned again and again to BEM for inspiration, finding in it an incentive to renew its own thought and life. BEM has been a force for renewal. No other ecumenical document has had such a fundamental effect on both theological understanding and renewal of life.
iii) BEM and the recognition and reception of others
But perhaps the greatest influence of BEM in the 80s and early 90s was in the achievements of closer communion, or communion with other churches. In England the Ecumenical Canons which guide for the Church of England the closer fellowship between Christians in England were based on the theological understandings of BEM. The conversations between the Church of England and the Moravian Church which led to the establishment of a new relationship on the
1 Apostolicity and Succession, House of Bishops Occasional Paper, Church House Publishing, 1998. Bishops in Communion, Collegiality in the Service of the Koinonia of the Church, Church House Publishing, 2000.
way to visible unity1 began by comparing the response each church had made to BEM in order to discover whether there was sufficient agreement between the two churches on sacraments and ministry to hope that a new relationship might be established. This proved a creative exercise. In their preface to the Agreed Statement the Co-‐
chairmen acknowledge the crucial theological groundwork that was laid out in BEM: ‘The consensus we have reached in our Conversations is based upon this groundwork.’ When the Conversations came to set out ten areas of agreement in faith as a basis for entering a new and committed relationship the agreements on baptism, Eucharist and ministry were couched not in Anglican or Moravian formularies but in the words of BEM. A separate chapter on the ordained ministry of the Church says that both churches find the statements concerning the threefold ministry in BEM consonant with their own understanding and goes on to quote extensively what BEM says about each of the three orders of the ministry. The same is true in the section that looks at apostolicity and succession. Here again the convergences of BEM provide the building blocks on which a new relationship has been established, a relationship which is developing today in committed partnership at local and national levels.
There can be little doubt about the effect that BEM has had on relations between the churches at local and national levels in England.
But perhaps an even more notable effect of BEM has been on relationships between churches at the European level. The Conversations between the Evangelical Church in Germany and the Church of England which led to the Meissen Agreement, the Conversations between the Anglican churches of Britain and Ireland and the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches which led to the Porvoo Agreement, and the Conversations between the British and Irish Anglican Churches and the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches establishing the Reuilly Agreement all depended heavily upon the convergences of BEM.2 Each of these three agreements sets out the
1 The Fetter Lane Common Statement, Anglican-‐Moravian Conversations, Council for Christian Unity, Church of England, 1996.
2 The Meissen Agreement, Council for Christian Unity, Occasional Paper 2, 1992;
goal of visible unity that the churches look to live together described in the Canberra Statement from the Canberra Assembly of the World Council of Churches, outlines agreements in faith they already share, quoting from BEM and on the basis of these makes firm commitments to live more closely together, sharing resources, and engaging in mission and service. The relationships established by the Meissen and Reuilly agreements are significant stages on the way to visible unity.
The Porvoo relationship is one of visible unity, expressed in the life of the new Porvoo Communion of churches. It is unlikely that any of these new relationships would have been established without the existence of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. It is not too much to claim that BEM contributed significantly to the changing of the ecclesial map of Europe. A new web of relationships between Christians in Europe has been created which extends across the old East-‐West divide. Neither is it an accident that in order to support these new relationships new collegial and communal structures have been established which themselves mirror the dimension of ministry described in the ministry section of BEM—personal, collegial and communal.
It would be possible to go on and illustrate how BEM also influenced Anglican-‐Methodist Covenant and relations with Baptists and the United Reformed Church in England.
iv) Summary
This is the story of the Church of England’s engagement with the four Rs of reception : response; renewal of its own life; recognition of the same faith in others; and renewed relations with others. Each church in Britain and Ireland will have its own story to set side by side with it.
Churches learnt a lot about one another even if that was coming to realise what we did not know about the structures and dynamics of others and the ways they come to make decisions in the communion of their own church.
Reception needed the commitment and enthusiasm of the ecumenical officers of the ecumenical structures in England, the Together in Mission and Ministry, The Porvoo Common Statement, Church House Publishing, 1993;
Called to Witness and Service: The Reuilly Common Statement, Church House Publishing, 1999.
ecumenical officers of the churches, and the leadership of the churches, with a willingness to be involved in a lengthy process and not an overnight event. But above all it meant having the conviction that the unity of the Church in one faith, one baptism, Eucharistic communion and reconciled ministries, ordered life, service and mission does matter, it is what God intends for the Church for the sake of the world. But it was not all positive. Response/reception was often seen as an inward exercise, navel-‐gazing, an evasion of the real task of mission and evangelism and service of the needs of the world.
Perhaps that’s why the next decade was much more focused on mission and service with a loss of emphasis on theological dialogue.
3. The Church: Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV) and