Don't count on Third World to bail out ecumenism, Anglican says

by John L Allen Jr
Feb. 10, 2010

This week, the Vatican’s office for ecumenism, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, is hosting a summit titled “Harvesting the Fruits," bringing together leading lights from the Catholic church, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, Methodism, anbd the Reformed churches. The idea is to figure out how the movement for Christian unity can move into what Cardinal Walter Kasper, the council’s president, calls a “more mature” phase, despite what many perceive as a big ecumenical chill. In addition, the hope is also to hand the torch to a new generation of leaders, given that many of the pioneers of the ecumenical movement are now passing from the scene.

One of those prospective new leaders in Rome this week is Anglican Rev. Ephraim Radner, a professor of theology at the Wycliffe College of the University of Toronto. Radner helped draft the “Anglican Communion Covenant,” an attempt to respond to deep divisions within Anglicanism over matters such as homosexuality and women bishops by identifying sources of authority with real teeth. (The covenant, issued in December 2009, offered four such pillars: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting.) For himself, Radner has taken the view that homosexuals should not be ordained, nor should their partnerships be affirmed, for “Scriptural, traditional, and moral reasons.”

Radner sat down with NCR on Feb. 10 to talk about this week’s summit, as well as the fate of the Anglican Communion. The following are excerpts from that interview. the rest