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Rules for Dialogue...Historical AntecedentsSeveral years ago, in an important ecumenical address, the late Father John Hotchkin (d. 2001) delivered a panoramic history of the ecumenical movement. For decades he had served as the executive director of the N.C.C.B.’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. ["The Ecumenical Movement’s Third Stage" Origins 25:21 (November 9, 1995): 353, 355-361.]Father Hotchkin’s overview divided ecumenical history into three eras. The first stage, “the pioneering period,” began in 1910. It was followed by a second, “the stage of dialogue” circa 1964. The first signs of the current period, “the stage of phased reconciliation,” are identified with the publication of Facing Unity: Models, Forms, and Phases of Catholic-Lutheran Church Fellowship in 1980 by the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Commission. The 1960s marked the initiation of the stage of dialogue. That phase coincides with the moment when the Catholic Church officially began participation in the ecumenical movement. By the 1980s, Father Hotchkin judged that dialogue had achieved such convergence in understanding that churches were developing proposals to redefine their relationships. The “Formula of Agreement” in 1997 between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the churches of the Reformed tradition is a notable instance of phased reconciliation. Yet, In spite of such progress on the ecumenical scene, dialogue is not supplanted since these unfolding stages continue to overlap and interpenetrate with one another. With literary grace, Father Hotchkin points out that “(t)he work of one stage continues even as that of a subsequent stage gets underway. It is not as though ecumenism were a stage play in which the curtain must come down on the first act before it can rise on the second.” As a matter of fact, the case can be made that the reality of being “more united” than in the past creates a perennial need for dialogue. The development of the method of dialogue in the 1960s played a crucial role in moving the divided churches beyond differences which formerly had been church-dividing. In particular, the method of dialogue has evolved and been refined through the dynamics of doctrinal discussions. Approaches now have become much more sophisticated than in the original state of ecumenical dialogue. Notwithstanding the progress presently achieved, a great deal of insight could be gained by returning to the initial ground rules for dialogue formulated by the trailblazing ecumenists of the 1960s. The year was 1961. Dr. Robert McAfee Brown (d.2001) and Jesuit Father Gustave Weigel (d. 1964) co-authored An American Catholic Dialogue: A Protestant looks at Catholicism and a Catholic looks at Protestantism (1961). At that time, Dr. Brown was then a professor at Union Theological Seminary; Father Weigel was a professor of ecclesiology at Woodstock College, an outstanding Jesuit theologate near Baltimore. The “Forward” was penned by Will Herberg, a noted Jewish scholar of religious sociology. After criticizing the inadequacies of how Catholics and Protestants “looked at” each other in the past, Brown and Weigel drew up six ground rules for effective dialogue. A working premise defined “dialogue” as a process wherein two persons or groups both talk to and listen to each other. The willingness to enter into dialogue presupposes that those engaged in conversation are “partners.” The first rule established the starting point, i.e., the assumption that the other partner is speaking in good faith. Trust rather than antagonism undergirds the process of dialogue. The second guideline was an expectation that participants enter into discussion with a clear understanding of their own faith. Dialogue does not entail the compromise of religious convictions. It does require that participants be informed. A third norm stipulated that each partner in dialogue strive for a clear understanding of each other’s faith. Two corollaries are derived from this rule. 1) The first corollary involves a mutual willingness to interpret “the faith of each other in its best light rather than its worst.” This maxim has been called “the principle of benevolent interpretation.” 2) A second corollary calls for participants to be disposed to revise their understanding of the positions of others. Caricatures and stereotypes die slow deaths! The fourth rule called for accepting responsibility for the past and present fostering of and the perpetuating of divisions. Humility and repentance should be characteristic virtues of partners in dialogue. The fifth rule acknowledged the need to face issues causing separation with candidness. Dr. Brown and Father Weigel noted that the destruction of dialogue can emanate from two extremes: a sentimentality which disguises a false charity of a cynicism which hardens separation. The sixth and last rule was explicitly theological. The search for Christian unity is ultimately a gift of the Spirit. The outcome of ecumenical conversations must be left in the hands of God, not to the preconceived notions of the participants. Dialogue must be offered to God with the trust that God will disclose the next step in the ecumenical undertaking. The surprises of the Spirit achieved through ecumenical dialogue are undeniable realities. Although the method of dialogue has moved to new levels and agendas, the guidelines from the inchoative stages of ecumenical dialogue retain substantive validity. Moreover, the past and the present enjoy continuity insofar as dialogue demands that the method be infused with spirituality.
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