A History of the Desire for Christian Unity Online

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction The first World’s Parliament of Religions was held in Chicago in 1893 during the World’s Columbian Exposition, which celebrated 400 years of America.1 Conceived by the lawyer Charles Carroll Bonney, it convened in the main hall of the Chicago Art Institute and attracted 150,000 people, according to a generous count. The 1893 parliament has been analyzed by present-day scholars from various angles, not only as a landmark in American religious history …

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Introduction The religious landscape in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s was a vibrant one characterized by a desire for spiritual renewal and authenticity. From the Catholic tradition emerged the Bible movement in which Catholics sought to find a new vigorous relationship to Holy Scripture. This current helped bring about a rapprochement with Protestantism and contributed to the foundation of the Katholisches Bibe…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Introduction The different movements that played an active role in the preparation of Vatican ii, that is, the biblical, patristic, liturgical, and ecumenical movements, probably cannot entirely be separated from each other. In fact, central players in one domain were often present in other domains, as was the case for Dom Bernard Botte, o.s.b., who became monk of Keizersberg1 (Leuven) because of the inspiring example of Dom Lambert Beauduin, promoter of the liturgical…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction When war broke out, the editor of the Protestant journal Christianisme au XXe siècle, Paul Doumergue, wrote in sorrow: “For twenty centuries now, in our so-called Christian civilization, the church has preached: love one another. This is certainly an hour of mourning for all Christians.”1 War, by its very nature, seemed to widen the gaps between confessions as it did between nations. The Christian ideals of fraternity, charity, and unity found …

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 From Gestation to Birth The emergence of the imc from the Edinburgh 1910 wmc was like the birth that comes at the end of a long gestation period.1 The subtitle of William Richey Hogg’s classic history of the imc is revealing: A History of the International Missionary Council and Its Nineteenth-Century Background.2 After tentative beginnings in the 18th century, the Western Protestant missionary movement truly came into its own from 1800, leading Kenneth Scott La…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 The Early Years Lauritz (Lars) Olof Jonathan Söderblom, called Nathan from his boyhood, was born in the small village of Trönö, province of Hälsingland, Northern Sweden, on Jan 15, 1866. He was the second of seven children, two of whom had died in infancy. His father Jonas, an adherent of Carl Olof Rosenius’s new-evangelical revival movement, was the Lutheran pastor there. This movement was strongly indebted to Ang…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Lord Halifax and Abbé Portal: Between Apostolicae curae and New Paths in the Anglican-Roman Catholic Dialogue The two moving spirits behind the conversations at Malines (1921–1925)1 were Charles Lindley Wood, viscount of Halifax, an Anglican layman who was for many years president of the English Church Union and a man who had dedicated most of his life to the reconciliation of the Church of England and the Church of Rome, and Fr. Fernan…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction We tend to think of the ecumenical movement – the main modern expression of the desire for Christian unity – as a purely 20th-century phenomenon, stemming, in its institutional form, from the wmc held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1910.1 The standard ecumenical narrative portrays ecumenism as then gradually gathering strength with the founding of the Faith and Order and Life and Work conferences, from the 1920s, making a breakthrough with th…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Inspiration Simon Kimbangu was a thaumaturgic prophet of Baptist upbringing who began healing the sick and raising the dead in March 1921 in Nkamba, his home village in the district of Bas-Congo in what was then the Belgian Congo. From this small settlement, about 50 kilometers from Thysville, a vast religious movement radiated out into the entire Congo region, spreading over an area fragmented by Belgian, French,…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Introduction It is beyond doubt that the ecumenical movement was relaunched after the Great War.1 The conflict lent a sense of urgency to the desire for reconciliation and unity, while the fall of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian Empires had changed the religious balance in many countries of the European continent and opened new mission spaces in the East. The defensive outlook with which the intra-Christian cooperation groups had been imbued for some decades2 may hav…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Historical Overview The Catholic liturgical movement, particularly in German-speaking areas, first arose in the 19th century and gradually developed during the following century along with the changes in the political, economic, and cultural context.1 The years 1909 and 1947 may be considered indicative of this history, since it was in 1909 that a Roman Catholic congress was held in Malines, Belgium, at which Dom Lambert Beauduin,2 a Benedictine monk of the Mont César Abbey a…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Christian Peace Initiatives between 1907 and 1914 Although it may seem surprising, the decade that preceded the outbreak of World War i was characterized not only by numerous crises but also by several Christian peace initiatives that originated, in particular, in Great Britain and Germany and were above all intended – in the face of the manifold political tensions between both countries (due to naval and colonial rivalry)1 – to promote binational understanding.2 The editor of The Peace…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction: The Orthodox Christian World in the Modern Era One of the most important challenges facing the Orthodox Christian world has been the inevitable encounter with modernity in its many and peculiar facets. In historical terms, modernity initially originated in Western Europe in close connection with the radical transformations, also in the religious sphere, that took place there with the advent of the Reformatio…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part III. Beginnings: Movements Become a Movement previous chapter 1 Introduction The aim of this contribution is to show the degree to which the second liturgical movement contributed to the birth of an ecumenical sensitivity and urgency in Germany’s Protestant Churches. To that end, I will analyze two exemplary cases, two currents from the second liturgical movement, beginning with their origins: the Hochkirche and the Berneuchen movements.1 As we will see, these can be seen as two paradigmatic poles whose tension fed the momentum o…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction Considered purely in terms of its 19th-century political and social influence, Slavophilism as a major force in 19th-century Russian life was rather short-lived. The two most notable Slavophiles, Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804–1860) and Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky (1806–1856), both died relatively young. Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (1817–1860), another of the original Slavophiles who had met r…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 The wmc1 held in the Assembly Hall of the United Free Church of Scotland in Edinburgh from June 14 to 23, 1910, expressed the untroubled confidence and passionate enthusiasm of the Western Protestant missionary movement as it approached the zenith of its size and global influence in the age of high imperialism. Approximately 1,215 official delegates, 1,008 of them men, and 207 women, gathered in the Scottish capital to debate how the various Protestant mission agencies could collaborate more effectivel…

In: Volume 1 Dawn of Ecumenism | Part II. Prehistory: The Challenges of Modernity previous chapter 1 Introduction In the seventh chapter of her 1954 history of the ecumenical movement, Ruth Rouse noted two starting points to what she called “the modern ecumenical movement”: the Grindelwald Conferences and the scm.1 According to Rouse, this interdenominational …