We gathered as activists and theologians to explore further the meaning of implications of Transformative Ecumenism in lived-contexts of people. We were hosted by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines to whom we express deep gratitude and joy for their partnership and praxis-oriented mission engagement.
We set ourselves the following objectives
- To develop transformative ecumenism as an alternative to conciliar ecumenism
- To deepen and consolidate agenda, concept, participation of transformative ecumenism
- To critically reflect on the Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace in the light of transformative ecumenism
- To strengthen and expand the network of transformative ecumenism
We met on the edge of conciliar ecumenism, feeling vexed that justice is marginalised from the ecumenical movement. Here we encountered Transformative Ecumenism as the partnership that is formed in mission from the margins and expressions of solidarity among people who resist their marginality.
We find ourselves in the wilderness, and realise it is a holy place, full of strange and painful hope. We know from our tradition that the wilderness is where God begins a new history, God’s new works. It is where God speaks, where God resides. It is the Holy Place. Transformative Ecumenism is a movement that seeks to return to the wilderness. Transformative Ecumenism is “wilderness ecumenism” that needs to be lived out with others who pilgrim there.
Solidarity Visits
Transformative Ecumenism is already amongst us in Spirit and in truth. We have contextualized ourselves into the life and struggle of Filipino peoples so that we can envision a Transformative Ecumenism that is rooted in the ground. Our exposure visits demonstrated powerfully the models of Transformative Ecumenism that we want to advocate and share. We visited three different situations and movements. These were: 1) Protest Action of Indigenous Peoples and Peasant against massive land grabbing organised by the Dumagat indigenous peoples of the Southern Tagalog Region in the Province of Rizal in the Island of Mindoro, south of Manila. 2) Barangay Nagpayong, Pasig City, East of Manila – an urban poor community whose land and rights are being eroded and denied by urban development projects. 3) Migrante International Community. Migrante International is an alliance of progressive organizations composed of overseas Filipinos and their families. Our solidarity visits pointed up that the crises of each particular place echoes the interconnected global crises and our need for an economy of life and a unity of purpose that seeks peace and justice. The exploitation of migrant workers, the denial of rights to poor urban communities and indigenous peoples, echo the stories of others peoples and communities around the world.
We listened to a number of presentations through the Colloquium and discerned a range of ideas and themes. Thus we sought to connect these ideas and themes with biblical themes as we attempt to deepen our analysis and articulation of Transformative Ecumenism.
Key features and practices of living out Transformative Ecumenism
- To respond to the call from the margins to seek justice: We belong to a faith tradition that is built around the memory of the One who defied the power and glory of the contemporary political and religious establishments and instead embraced the marginalized people and communities. We are called to be an alternative community taught his disciples that to have and wield power is to be a servant and even goes to extent of being one by washing their feet on the night before he was killed. In fact, much of the biblical tradition itself is so much of this, despite some assertions on the contrary, unveiling to us the locale of God‟s presence and power among the Last, the Lost and the Least. It is in the company and the call of marginalised people that ecumenism becomes vital, radical and relevant.
- To live inclusively in solidarity with each other: Justice and inclusion go together, unity needs diversity to properly reflect the web of life that God has made. Justice raises up the least and makes first the last. There can be no justice unless it is open to all and for all and embraces all because all of life is under threat. Ecumenism needs to settle beyond the borders the church has marked out between churches, between the church and the world, between the world and the Creation. We see TE becoming a reality where dignity and diversity is respected as gender roles and relationships are transformed and the gifts, calling and leadership of differently-abled people expressed, women honoured and positive practice of masculinities expressed. TE begins to unfold when young and older people voice their vision of the movement Jesus started, and take it forward in their own style. We are all fragments of the image of God and of the communities of the earth, all waiting to be gathered up in the Spirit and transformed. (Romans 8) This inclusiveness embraces people of all faiths and none, a deep ecumenism that can claim to be the beginning of the full transformation God has promised.
- To actively seek first the kin-dom of God: In order to be inclusive, TE has to be participative. This is in stark contrast to the bureaucratic and technical ecumenism practised by the churches and the conciliar ecumenical movement, which largely seeks to manage and facilitate unity among confessional traditions. TE is fundamentally concerned with questions about power and poverty, and people’s struggles for justice and peace. We look to the passion and conviction of those who wrestle, demonstrate and even suffer and die for justice and align ourselves with them. TE seeks justice for the poor and the earth, is turned towards Creation and the marginalised and actively seeks our common liberation into life in fullness. (John 10)
- To empower mutually: TE is empowering as we enter into solidarity and companionship with people inside and outside our faith traditions. TE seeks to be empowering, for it flows from an activist stance that makes partnership with the people and does not co-opt them to our institutional desires and goals. This partnership is mutually empowering, so that a platform is made for all to raise their cries and voice their vision of justice. Once we are rooted in the peoples‟ struggles the Spirit‟s accompanying power flourishes and grows.
- To live out the subversive nature of the Gospel: TE is ecumenism from the margins, with those at the margins. We lament that women and men of faith and integrity, committed to justice and peace are threatened by the powers, and even killed. It is made all the worse when leaders in the community of faith malign and suspect them and their faith. It is clear that still many churches do not grasp the subversive nature of the Gospel to all Empire. The church, most often, continues to deny the wholeness of Christ‟s vision of life in fullness and the challenge this brings to our politics and economics and to our ecclesiology and theology. The institutional expressions of the ecumenical movement concern themselves with internal – organisational and bureaucratic matters, seeking always to perpetuate themsleves rather than propagate a deep and wide ranging vision of justice for the marginalised peoples and the exploited earth.
- To to be rooted in the dynamic spirituality of life: TE stands under the eschatological tension of the now and not yet, articulating a vision of justice and peace yet to be fully incarnated. Thus it remains open to new and hybrid forms of shared life and witness. At the margins, in the journey, through the wilderness, from the movement TE offers us a dynamic spirituality of life. The wilderness through which we travel is a holy place, and we are sent there by God as we leave behind the places of false security that the church has built for itself through the ecumenical movement.
- To live and love, struggle and celebrate our hope in God’s power to transform: In an unjust world, what can be more hopeful than joining those who struggle for justice? In a divided world, what can be more hopeful than an ecumenism that is inclusive? In a despairing world, what can be a more hopeful than an ecumenism that is active? In a silo-ed world, what can be more hopeful than an ecumenism that is empowering? In an elitist world, what can be more hopeful than an ecumenism that is subversive? In an entrenched world, what can be more hopeful than an ecumenism that is dynamic? In a domesticated ecumenism what can be more hopeful than reclaiming its radical heritage and transforming its current practices and structures? Thus in a world of brokenness we need spiritualities and practices of transformative unity that bring healing and hope.
Conclusion
To live out TE is to reclaim our transformative heritage in the ecumenical movement. We testify to the significance of the ecumenical movement in many contexts and settings when justice has been at the centre of its life. In our discussions of TE as a justice movement, a counter cultural movement to Conciliar Ecumenism, who see the journey from the margins and in the wilderness as something to seek and face in partnership with other companeros committed to justice.