Reuters runs a story about a new and exciting religious coalition called "Christian Churches Together in the USA" that will include U.S. Catholics as well as a cross section of evangelical, pentecostal, mainline protestant and other denominations. In the formation stage since 2001, the group will represent a much larger group of Christians than any current ecumenical group.
So, am I just paranoid, or are the alarm bells going off in my head a rational response to this unity-through-bureaucracy movement? I’m sorry, I am having a hard time seeing the benefit of signing on to such a movement. Okay, so we are gonna "agree to disagree" on a whole raft of stuff and concentrate on working together on things like "overcoming poverty". A better recipe for mischief could hardly be imagined. I could be wrong, of course, but the giddy ramblings like this one have not exactly calmed my nerves:
Tim Matovina, director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of
American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame, said one of the
significant things about the new group is its stated objective of not
taking a stand on something unless all member churches agree.
Often today the rank-and-file members don’t always agree with what church leaders say, he said.
Beyond that, the renewed interest in ecumenical cooperation is another
indication that "in American religion today … denominations mean less
and less," he said.
The country has a strong history rooted in
home-ruled Congregational churches, and today Lutherans, Presbyterians
and Catholics are "experiencing this Congregational dynamic where
people kind of ignore or resist what denominational leaders say, and
seek out a pastor who suits their style … what’s important is the
service."
If this is the kind of Catholic that finds the prospect of such a coalition exciting, then my instinct to go for my parachute seems wholly justified.
Apparently the group will function something like the U.N. (we can only hope). If they truly plan to "not take a stand on something unless all member churches agree" we can anticipate alot of fluffy rhetoric and not much action, which would be the best scenario.
“this Congregational dynamic where people kind of ignore or resist what denominational leaders say, and seek out a pastor who suits their style”
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.” [2Tim 4:3-4]
I thought we already _had_ groups like this. And that they do nothing.