Quaker Theology #9 -- Fall-Winter 2003

The Church: Called, Gathered, and Faithful -- continued -- 4

(25) In this spirit, we cannot unite with the proposed redefinitions of the term "hierarchy," much as we appreciate the reconciling spirit behind them. Such radical redefinition deprives the term of specifiable meaning, and would be better replaced by a term that better befits the "relational life in which there is no subordination or domination" (after par. 97). We wonder, as well, whether such an attempt masks real differences between the churches, and might better be retained in its ordinary meaning, employed by those churches that make use of it but not by those which do not. We are a religious society functionally organized in layers of geographically broader structures of governance, but we cannot adopt for ourselves the term "hierarchy" to describe our governance. Ministries in the church certainly require the ordering of which the document speaks, and we affirm the "communion of co-responsible members" (after par. 97). But we note that many members of hierarchical churches would deny that their church is a "communion of co-responsible members" whether they do so critically or appreciatively.

(26) The apostolic character of the church is the gift of every person who has responded to Christ’s offer of grace and redemption, and the responsibility of passing on that apostolic character is no more than the responsibility to share the Gospel and be the means of bringing others into the new covenant, as God gives grace and opportunity to do so.

(27) We note with appreciation the document’s emphasis on Christian service, and we would submit that cooperation in Christian service and mission may be the most fruitful area for the deepening of Christian community. We unite with the sentiments of par. 111-117, with the reservation that our understanding of baptism and the Lord’s Supper is different, as noted above. Yet we unite wholeheartedly with the conviction that Christian ethics and Christian service are grounded in the community’s worship, in which it seeks communion with God through Christ, experiences inward transformation of the soul and empowerment for discipleship, and seeks to discern the leadings of the Holy Spirit. We joyfully confess that the basis of Christian ethics and service is the presence of Christ among us as our redeemer, teacher, and Lord. We testify that God’s will for us can be known through the Holy Spirit as we set aside the confusions and contradictions of our own wills and listen corporately to the evidences of the Spirit’s leading among us.

(28) It is difficult for us to comment on whether the document represents "converging understandings," because we recognize that as the major churches of the world come closer to "converging understandings," our distinctive ways of understanding and living the Gospel and of being church will probably remain well outside that convergence. The convergence represented in the document on "Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry" largely excludes our theological understandings, yet we have no desire to impose our forms of Christian practice upon other Christian bodies, and we look for signs of visible unity in other arenas. It is not clear to us that churches must have identical understandings of the church and its ministry in order to achieve mutual recognition. Churches which place restrictions upon who may participate in or preside at sacramental celebrations will have to address the conflicts that arise when these restrictions are mutually exclusive. Any Christian indeed, any person is welcome to worship with us, to pray with us, to offer vocal ministry among when moved by the Spirit of God, to share in the communion with God that we experience in our gathered meetings for worship. Few if any of our recorded ministers would be concerned with being authorized to celebrate the sacraments in other churches. Some of our members might have a desire to participate in other churches’ sacraments, and we no longer forbid this. We recognize that the Spirit blows where it will, that Christ is available as an ever present help to all who call on his name, and is present in every human being to convict of sin, redeem, and guide even where the outward Gospel has not been heard. We rejoice that Christ works where and how he will, and we do not make it our business to adjudicate how other churches respond to that work.

(29) We hope that we are not guilty of "retrenchment often expressed in a reconfessionalism of an anti-ecumenical spirit," but we confess that our heritage, our distinctive understanding of the Gospel continues to be a source of vitality and creativity, and we are cautious about compromising it, though we have learned to be a great deal more flexible and appreciative of others in the last century and a half. Our commitment to the integrity of the Gospel as we understand it is confessional, but no less ecumenical.

The oikumené , the "household of faith," is a house of many mansions; we need not all live in the same one. We are committed to the effort to find ever more ways of experiencing and expressing Christian unity, but we believe that the diversity of gifts of the Holy Spirit and the inexhaustible richness of the goodness of God may require a diversity and plurality of ecclesial arrangements and practices to manifest this fullness. We happily recognize ourselves as part of a much broader Christian movement, a recognition we have not always made in the past and we hope to continue sharing our witness to the Gospel with other Christians. This may involve occasional critique, which should be part of the mutual accountability of Christians in any case. Friends United Meeting in particular has at points had major differences with the World Council, and these may arise again at times. But these differences and critiques should be interpreted as part of the collegial accountability that obtains between Christians, not as retrenchment or an anti-ecumenical spirit. Our vision of Christian unity is grounded in our experience of the gathered meeting, united under Christ’s reconciling leadership and empowered to serve God faithfully in the world. We commend the Faith and Order Commission on its work of nurturing an increase of love among us. We are grateful to God for the mutual blessings that come as we seek together to understand the riches of the Gospel with other Christians in the ecumenical movement.