This fourth colloquium sought to build on the experience of the previous gatherings to identify signposts for future direction of and deepening transformative ecumenism with the following objectives:
- To clarify and deepen Transformative Ecumenism
- To understand the challenges of the changing global landscape and its implications
- To reflect on transformative ecumenism from various experiential and contextual perspectives
- To explore ways in which transformative ecumenism can be practiced in different contexts
Framing Theological and Contextual Questions
The goals of the colloquium were addressed contextually with conventional and renewed analysis of what it means to be ecumenical today. The following contexts gave rise to this reflection on the church’s engagements with people movements: 1) Korea; 2) Japan; 3) Caribbean; 4) Indonesia; 5) Zambia; 6) India; 7) Palestine; 8) South Africa; 9) African Diaspora.
The reflection on these contexts were shaped by four questions:
- What makes Transformative Ecumenism a truly people’s movement rather than an institutional/intellectual-driven stream of thinking and action?
- How do we present and elaborate ecumenism as necessary for authentic Christian self-understanding, particularly in the light of popular concepts and expectations of being religious?
- How can ecumenical councils and organizations be catalysts rather than owners and custodians of ecumenism and the ecumenical movement?
Transformative Ecumenism Begins and Ends at the Margins
Transformative ecumenism was affirmed as an emerging movement that is de-centralized and located at and led by the agenda set by people and places at the margins. More than a structure it is an inclusive movement of those heading and struggling for life in justice and fullness for all.
Using margins as its primary site and perspective, TE understands margins as multidimensional and multidirectional sites of injustice, violence, discrimination, suffering, and trauma as well as of resilience, resistance, and struggle to bring about justice, healing and transformation. Margins redirect us to the lives and struggles of the marginalized, and from within the margins we are called to reimagine joy and hope for the transformation of life.
Margins transcend differences and manifest in various aspects of life. In the lives of the marginalized—in the margin of the margins with the voiceless, the wounded, the broken—we encounter Jesus, who is the symbol of the margin. His life, ministry, death, and resurrection testify to the transformation of the division between centers and margins, between us and them, between the ecumenical movement and the rest of the world. From Jesus we learn the language of margins—the language of wounds that speaks from within the incomprehensibility of suffering, discrimination, violence, and injustice. It is the language of Ubuntu or Utu that invites us to see ourselves in the other, “you are because we are”; it is the language of life that transforms fear and hatred. Margins invite us to speak its language and let the voice of the margins—of the traumatized, of the victims/survivors/witnesses of peace and justice—be the power of the present that calls on church leaders, the community, and global leaders to be accountable.
Margins disrupt our conventional understanding of what the ecumenical movement is—a movement that has been institutionalized and defined solely as a movement toward church unity. Margins rupture the process of othering that often takes place within the ecumenical movement and invite a radical turn to embody a spirituality of life that respects and embraces differences, upholding human equity, dignity, and the integrity of creation. Margins testify to prophetic denouncement that says “No” to the continuation of enslavement through the systems and practice of racism, casteism, sexism, forced migration, human trafficking, and economic injustice. It says “NO” to church’s abuse of power, the spread of fear that discriminates and rips the church of its authority to witness to Christ’s peace. It says “Yes” to the celebration of life as it is manifested in the life, struggle, resistance of the margins. Margins testify to who we are as people on the way, being transformed and transform.
Transformative Ecumenism Demands Costly Peace
Transformative ecumenism, in this phase of the ecumenical movement, should build its peace building perspectives by re-reading the gospel of peace that Jesus taught and practiced in his ministry and mission. Transformative ecumenism insists on a peace rooted in an understanding and practice built from the base up and not an agenda that is prescribed from top down by the dominant privileged class. Therefore, TE must listen to and be informed by voices of peace that come from the margins: Children, young people, women, people who are victims of political, economic and religious orchestrated violence.
This vision of transformative ecumenism embraces a “bird-nest” weaving model that constitute intermingled design with building blocks coming from different sections of the diverse community. It is not a homogenous design aim at a one size fit all. It is a peace that is modelled on the life and death of Jesus constitutes a sacrificial and therefore costly peace that runs counter to the Imperial logic of “Pax Romana”. It necessitates costly discipleship that is willing to journey with people in their suffering and away from an individualistic and privatized orientation to one that is communal. In sum, transformative ecumenism should be understood as Unity for God’s Mission at the Margins.
Wisdoms that inspire Authentic Engagement in Transformative Ecumenism
Transformative ecumenism invites us to:
- challenge and correct narratives and discourses of fear and by re-imagining and witnessing to narratives of life that are embedded in spiritualities of life across boundaries;
- proclaim prophetic denouncements that says No to the continuation of enslavement through the systems and practice of racism, casteism, sexism, migration, human trafficking, and economic injustice. It says NO to church’s abuse of power, the spread of fearthat discriminates and rips the church of its authority to witness to Christ’s peace. It says YES to the celebration of life as it is manifested in the life, struggle, resistance of the margins;
- resist a decolonial construct and confront demonic powers of empires manifested in different powers— military, economic, cyber space;
- celebrate a peace that includes the transformation of the world;
- reintegrate into a multicultural society thus provides a model of living together regardless of our differences;
- journey with a spirit for discerning together the demonic powers of empire that are manifested in our daily life and continue to marginalize and enlarge the margins in our various contexts. Our discernment requires a sense of urgency to denounce prophetically unjust economic structure, wars, violence, discrimination that maintain the ways of life and systems that dehumanize minorities, people at the margins, and the multitude others;
- embeddedness in the prophetic mission and costly ministry that are witnessed by women, youth, and leaders in various contexts;
- learn and speak the language of the margins and lets the voice of the margins—the traumatized, victims/survivors/witnesses of peace and justice—be the power of the present that calls out church leaders, community, and global leaders to be accountable.
It is the voice that gives birth to the language of love, peace and lives out a spirituality of life. It imagines the healing and reconciliation among the wounded communities.