Perspectief 2015-29

2015-29 The Making of an Ecumenical Text 19 Reag eer ecclesiology should lead to further stages of the text in which, as the churches overcame inherited divisions, the controversial material in the boxes would progressively become part of a converging or perhaps consensual text. Following the WCC 1998 Assembly, The Nature and Purpose of the Church was submitted to the WCC member churches and ecumenical partners so that they would study the text and answer to a series of questions formulated in the Introduction. III Phase Two: Towards The Nature and Mission of the Church (2005) In the years following the submission of The Nature and Purpose of the Church to the churches and ecumenical partners, the new Faith and Order Commission 38 pursued its work on the text in three ways. 1. The Responses to The Nature and Purpose of the Church The first one was to analyse the responses to the text. Altogether, Faith and Order received 52 responses. 1 was Anglican, 1 was Baptist, 7 from Free Churches, 3 were Lutheran, 1 Methodist, 5 were Orthodox, 7 Reformed, 2 Roman Catholic, 9 from church councils, 7 were from theological schools, 6 from individuals, and 3 from mixed groups. A quick look at these figures shows that at least 19 answers – more than one third came from churches marked by the Reformation. Another important element has to do with the 5 Orthodox responses, none of them from patriarchates. None of the Roman Catholic responses was from a national bishops conference. All of them, with one single exception, came either from Europe, North America or Australia and New Zealand. We are far from the impressive number of responses ensued by the 1982 convergence text Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. 38 The new group in charge of the study in ecclesiology had the following members: Gennadios of Sassima, Jean Tillard, Gao Ying, John Hind, Sarah Kaukule, Mary O’Driscoll, William Rusch, Hermen Shastri, Dorothea Wendebourg, and C. Mel Robeck.