Anglican Adjectives pt. 7: Ecumenical
For those of you desiring to learn more about the Anglican tradition and its history, I invite you to pick up JI Packer’s wonderful book The Heritage of Anglican Theology. In this book, Packer lays out seven shared “Anglican adjectives” — essentials shared by all Anglicans.
The seven adjectives are: biblical, liturgical, evangelical, pastoral, episcopal, national, and ecumenical. In this series of brief posts, I plan to tease each of those adjectives out.
What It Means To Be “Ecumenical”
To be ecumenical is to be willing to learn from others and to partner with others outside of your denomination or tribe. The ecumenical spirit strives for unity, cooperation, and understanding among other orthodox Christians. It does not discredit truth, but instead, it operates under the assumption that 'my tribe' has something to learn from others.
Packer explains, “Anglican theology has never claimed to be self-sufficient…Anglicanism does not want to be a form of Christianity standing against all other forms. We do not like to think we have distinctives [the distinctives are simply 'Christian' distinctives]. We like to think that we are mainstream. We do not deny that others are to some extent in the mainstream with us. We are glad they are.”
He continues, “Part of the Anglican ethos, which has always marked Anglicans out in Christendom, is willingness to learn from other sorts of Christians. Anglicans do not sell their souls to other sorts of Christians, but they open the window, so to speak, to see out and discover what other Christians have to offer. Then they go and say: 'We would like to learn this and that from you. Please explain it. Let us share it. If it is a matter of theological insight, please instruct us. If it is a matter of pastoral insight, please show us how it is done. We want to learn. We want to get the benefit' .... Anglicans have the ecumenical mindset and want to see all the good, all the wisdom there is, anywhere in the Christian world."
With that humble posture of learning is also an open posture of partnership. Doors ought not be shut due to minor differences of opinion or understanding. Partner wherever possible and seek the unity that Christ desires for His church. Don’t divide over this or that—instead, seek to be whole. Seek to be one church under God!
Speaking personally, the ecumenical spirit is one of the most compelling elements about Anglicanism for me. Some denominations highly emphasize doctrinal exactitude, and thus, partnership and unity with Christians outside of the tribe is nearly impossible. That’s a disheartening reality! I’m compelled by Christ’s prayer to the Father, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one” (John 17:20–22). Somehow the church’s unity and love (oneness) plays an evangelical role in the world — it helps the world believe that the Father sent the Son. That’s no small thing!