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Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious
Relationships
The United Methodist Church
•Integrity
•Authenticity
•Respect
•Accountability
What does unity mean for us?
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one
hope of your calling, one Lord,
one faith, one baptism, one God and Parent of all, who is above all and
through all and in all.
Ephesians 4: 4 - 6
ECUMENISM –CHRISTIAN UNITYActivities and organizations aimed at promoting:
• Common service• Witness • Worship
Among now-divided Christian churches
VISIBLE UNITY
AS THE BODY OF CHRIST
Three streams of ecumenical activity
1. Life and Work
2. Faith and Order
3. The International Missionary Council (IMC)
ECUMENISM
Councils of Christian churches or denominations promoting unity
through greater cooperation and improved understanding.
Interdenominational Cooperation Fund (ICF)
The Interdenominational Cooperation Fund, authorized by the General Conference, provides basic support for ecumenical activities through which the UMC participates in God’s mission in cooperation with other Christian communions.
Recommendations regarding the amount to be raised are made by the Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships of the Council of Bishops.
OCUIRCouncil of Bishops
The Interdenominational Cooperation Fund was established in 1952 to:
support ecumenical efforts
around the world; witness to the Christian
faith; foster a renewal of
Christian unity and understanding;
meet human suffering; and
advocate for global peace and
justice.
Councils of Christian Churches or denominations promote unity through greater
cooperation and improved understanding.
World Council of ChurchesA worldwide association of Christian churches, bringing together more than 340 churches, denominations, and church fellowships in over 100 countries and territories.
World Methodist CouncilFounded in 1881, an organization comprising 104 member churches throughout the world that share a Wesleyan or Methodist heritage.
The United Methodist Church is a member of the National Council of the Churches of Christ and through its predecessor denominations has been a member from the beginning of the Council.
United Methodists serve as voting members of the governing board, principal divisions, and committees of the Council.
Founded in 1950, 37 member communions come together in covenant community as the National Council of Churches to offer common witness to Jesus Christ and to share in a ministry of reconciliation to the world in his name. Together, they include more than 45 million people in over 100,000 congregations in the United States.
National Council of ChurchesThe National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
World Council of Churches
A worldwide association of Christian churches, bringing together more than 340 churches, denominations, and church fellowships in over 100 countries and territories.
World Methodist Council
Founded in 1881, the World Methodist Council is made up of 80 Methodist, Wesleyan and related Uniting and United Churches representing over 80.5 million people in 133 countries. Its headquarters is located in Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
It engages, empowers and serves the member Churches by encouraging Methodist unity in witness, facilitating mission in the world, and fostering ecumenical and inter-religious activities.
THE WORLD METHODIST COUNCIL
It promotes obedience to the Great Commandment of Jesus Christ to love God and neighbor and to fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples through vibrant evangelism, a prophetic voice, cooperative programs, faithful worship and mutual learning.
Pan-Methodist Family
Full Communion Partners
African Methodist Episcopal ChurchAfrican Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church
Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
The United Methodist Church
Union American Methodist Episcopal Church
CHRISTIAN UNITY - ECUMENISM
Ecumenical Vision for the Connection
The ecumenical movement is about
making visible to itself and to the world,
the effective harmony in the diversity
of the body of Christ, the church through:
1. Dialogue 2. Worship3. Service
Christian Unity and Interreligious RelationshipsUnity (harmony of the church
and renewal of the human community).
1. Living witness of Christ’ love and reconciliation
2. Foundation for interreligious dialogue and cooperation
a. Biblical
b. Wesley
Scripture gives us many images of neighborliness which extends across
conventional boundaries.
God challenging Abraham and Sarah to go live among strangers (Genesis 12).
Speaking with a lawyer, Jesus reminds him that his neighbor, the one to whom he should show love and compassion, and from whom he may receive grace, may be a stranger (Luke 10:25).
Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships
A witness to Jesus Christ is one who can bridge boundaries, be they geographic, sociological, racial, or cultural.
The Gospels tell story after story of Jesus crossing boundaries and reaching to outsiders, drawing them into his circle.
Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships
What are some of the scriptures
that would be fruitful to explore
as a basis for interreligious relationships?
Here are some;what others can you think of?Acts 10 – Cornelius
Genesis 14 – MelchizedekI Corinthians 13:7
Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships
Our Lord’s call to neighborliness (Luke 10:27) includes “strangers” of other faith traditions who live in towns and cities.Christianity itself impels us to love our neighbors and to seek to live in contact and mutually beneficial relationships, in community, with them.
Our Context as Christians in the “World Community”
Increasingly Interdependent Nations
Daily Inter-religions Experiences
Worldwide Problems
Require Connectional Solutions
What does it mean to affirm the Lordship of Jesus Christ in a religiously pluralistic world?
How can we relate to one another and remain powerful witnesses for Jesus Christ?
How are we to relate
to those who seem different from usin religious belief?
Possible Reactions to “Otherness”:
Exclusivism:
Relativism:
Inclusivism:
Pluralism
Pluralism Pluralism is active engagement.
Pluralism is an active attempt to understand.
Pluralism is an encounter of deep commitments.
Pluralism keeps the deep religious commitments of each.
(based on Diana Eck’s A New Religious America)
What can United Methodist Christians do and bring
for building constructive relationships between persons of
different religions, who hold other faith perspectives?
We United Methodist Christians, not just individually, but corporately,
are called to be neighbors with other faith communities.
30
Neighbors work together to create:
A human community A set of relationships
between people at once interdependent and freeCommunity characterized by
Office of Christian Unity & Interreligious Relationships
JUSTICELOVE
MUTUALRESPECT
AS DISCIPLES OF JESUS, our outreach draws upon the gospel
to be even more than neighbors.
We are to proclaim and witness to the God who has bound humanity together in care for one another, regardless of the differences between us.
John Wesley
“… we are not required to determine
anything touching their final state..
How it will please God,
the Judge of all, to deal with them,
we may leave to God himself. But
this we know, that he is not the
God of the Christians only …”Wesley’s sermon, “On Charity”
The Sermons of John Wesley, No. 91
DIALOGUEA Way to be Neighbors
• Dialogue is not debate. • Define yourself honestly and fully. • Dialogue is two-pronged – learning
about other, and learning about self. • At its deepest level, dialogue is both
learning about and sharing our faith through stories and images.
• Create an atmosphere of honesty and openness.
• Know where you are coming from
• Be open to the direction that the dialogue takes.
• Deal openly with the hard issues as well as the easy issues.
• Separate the essential elements of each faith tradition from the non-essentials.
• Focus your conversation on the former.
• Don’t require more agreement from your partners in dialogue that you require from your own faith tradition.
A Way to Witness
A true willingness to enter a relationship of mutual acceptance, openness, and
respect.
Engagement in dialogueis a form of Christian ministry.
In genuine dialogue, we witness and are witnessed to.
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
Rosh Hashanah (Jewish), Hajj (Muslim), Buddhist Monks, Diwali (Hindu)
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
Interfaith celebrations
Suggestions for Christian participation in interfaith prayer,
celebration, and worship:
Welcome Welcome people of other faiths to
Christian worship. Inform them about what they are observing. Use your usual form of service.
In Christian worship, use materials from other faith communities only with sensitivity to their original history, meaning, and context.
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
Learn Visit the worship activities of other faith
communities only when you can do so with respectful presence. Before going, learn about the community and your expected behavior.
Before participating in the worship of another faith community in any way, be clear about the meaning of doing so. Avoid participation that invites misinterpretation and confusion or that violates the integrity of either your own or the other community.
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
Communicate and Plan Be clear about the reasons for
interfaith events. Expect each community to decide
who will represent it in planning an interfaith celebration.
Respect the right of each person to determine her/his own level of participation. Acknowledge to one another what is and is not acceptable.
Be mindful of the importance of silence.
Never use jointly-planned interfaith celebrations as an opportunity to proselytize.
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
In a group whose members have developed mutual trust with each other, be sure that any act of interfaith worship is integral to the group's processes rather than an intrusion. Check to see that everyone can affirm what is happening.
Affirm as a Christian that commitments made in gathered interfaith communities will not violate your ultimate confession to God, the Source of our being.
(Adapted from Interfaith Relations, Presbyterian Church (USA) website)
Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious
Relationships
The United Methodist Church
