Spirals Not Cycles: Towards an Analytic Approach to the Sources and Stages of Ecumenism
Ecumenism is the result of five interrelated but distinct sources: Christianity's mythic structure, Christian theology, social ethics, modern secular pluralism and administrative rationality. The role of each of these sources is dependent on social and historical forces, and thus the strength o...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Springer
1990
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| In: |
Review of religious research
Year: 1990, Volume: 32, Issue: 1, Pages: 5-15 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | Ecumenism is the result of five interrelated but distinct sources: Christianity's mythic structure, Christian theology, social ethics, modern secular pluralism and administrative rationality. The role of each of these sources is dependent on social and historical forces, and thus the strength of ecumenism will vary. The "folk" ecumenism functional for modern societies is a necessary condition for principled ecumenism but severely limits its further development. Although the meanings of ecumenism vary within Christianity, the history of Protestant ecumenism suggests that only a renewed social ethics will promote further ecumenical energies. Since these efforts directed at social justice will go counter to "folk" ecumenism and cause disputes that give rise to the continued need for "internal ecumenism," another stage of hesitancy where questions of identity and boundary predominate will follow. To deal with these cycles of ecumenical advance and stabilization ecumenists have developed the term "reception" and have come to view ecumenism as "process" and in this way have transformed ecumenism into the "necessary utopianism" evoked by Christian symbols of human solidarity. Ecumenism should be of some interest to sociologists concerned about the paradoxical relationships between the particularistic roots of identity and the universalistic aspiration to a noncoercive world order. |
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| ISSN: | 2211-4866 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review of religious research
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.2307/3511323 |