Lecture - The Church - by William Henn

9 Reageer seen as in opposition with one another. That is what led the Faith and Order Commission, in its presentation of ministry in the famous convergence text on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (the Lima text of 1982; hereafter BEM), to affirm that ministry should be seen as personal, collegial and communal. Is there a compatibility in the values underlying the visions of “church” held by the various Christian communities? [6] The search for a common vision of Church is at the very heart of the aim of the World Council of Churches. Two years after its founding at Amsterdam in 1948, its Central Committee issued the “Toronto Statement” listing five visions of the unity of the church held by various member churches: 1) some believe that full consensus in doctrine is the basis of church unity; 2) others that unity is a sacramental communion based on church order; 3) others believe that both of these conditions must be present for unity; 4) some argue that unity in certain fundamental articles of faith is sufficient; and 5) still others are convinced that the church is a spiritual fellowship and that visible unity is inessential or even undesirable. 4 [7] The Toronto statement then added: ““The whole point of the ecumenical conversation is precisely 4 Available at http://www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/central- committee/1950/toronto-statement [accessed September 13, 2013]. The title of this document is “The Church, the Churches and the World Council of Churches.” The circumstances of its composition and its essential content are nicely summarized by Morris West, “Toronto Statement,” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, Nicholas Lossky et al. (ed.), Geneva: WCC Publications, 2002 2 , 1137-1139.