Föredrag och artiklar

Sr Madeleine Fredell OP höll följande inlägg under en studiedag på Menighetsfakulteten i Oslo i slutet av hösten 2016. Studiedagens tema var ”1517 – 2017 From Stumbling Stone to Common Ground”.

Common Ground – Where do we go from here?

Spiritual and Ethical Perspectives

The world is craving for meaning, hope and mercy. People are longing for a unity in diversity in a world where nations are closing in on themselves and throwing out people who do not conform to the specific cultural norm. Many Christians of the principal denominations want a new theology responding to the challenges facing us today, whether we are talking about peace, refugees, economy or ecology. Many Christians from various churches are committing themselves in both hands-on social work on a local level, relief programs on an international scale and in concrete politics. In these areas we have already been working together for a long time.

Recently Caritas Internationalis and the World Service of the Lutheran World Federation signed a joint commitment to strengthen their current common programmes. This manifestation of unity and practical cooperative work will make their efforts and achievements stronger to the benefit of the poor and suffering people in our world. They are doing mercy, they are giving hope and by their commitment they are also conveying the tools for creating meaning in life, not only to those who are benefitting from their work but also to themselves as givers. To achieve concrete results they have to work closely together resting on a unity in diversity. You simply don’t ask about a suffering person’s religious tradition, you heal his or her wounds. From this point of view, it is a humiliating scandal that we ourselves can’t share in one another’s Eucharistic tables.

So what about healing our wounds in the bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogues? Are we ourselves really bearing witness to a unity in diversity? What kind of answer are we, more or less professional Christians, theologians and church-leaders, giving to the faithful who are craving for meaning, hope and mercy? What do we say to people who are expecting us to act from a standpoint of mercy and hope? We are giving doctrine to people who are craving for meaning in life. We are writing documents which are hardly read outside our own circles. We are speaking words that are just incomprehensible and empty of meaning to most people.

Let me very briefly outline what I believe should be the way forward in our ecumenical dialogues and in doing ecumenism.

What has recently happened in the US presidential election is not confined to that country but is something we see all over the world. We only need to mention Poland, Hungary and the Brexit on the European continent and the fear what will happen next in Austria, the Netherlands and France. In the worst of scenarios we can be faced with a complete breaking up of the European Union and maybe even of peace. We certainly don’t need more uniformity and conformity in politics and as Christians we have the possibility to witness of a true unity in diversity.

In the encyclical Laudato Si on the challenges of ecology and climate crisis Pope Francis calls for a new anthropology writing that “There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology” (§ 118). A new theological anthropology could constitute an inspiring dialogue and a healing bridge between our Christian denominations. For example, it is urgent for my own Catholic Church to withdraw its rather shabby anthropology which still suggests that man, the male, is the norm and the woman is the different one, sometimes even with a special female genius. In that context, I wonder what the male genius is?  

A new theological anthropology could help all Christians to deconstruct and recreate a common Christology leading to a common view on the Church, the sacraments, the priesthood, the Petrine ministry and other ministries in our communities. A new theological anthropology in tune with present exegetical, theological and scientific research will probably lead us to a visible unity, at least between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Churches in the Nordic countries.

But do we want a visible unity, a unity in diversity? First of all, we shall not confuse a visible unity with an organisational one. We do not need that at all. For example, the Roman Catholic Church and a number of Oriental Christian Churches are united with one another with structural differences and a different canon law and a highly visible difference in the liturgy. But visible unity will at least presuppose a sharing of the Eucharist.

However, with a visible unity in diversity a lot of people will lose their power, their well-fenced territories. We know Jesus’ answer to that, “Among you this is not to happen.”[1] We know very well which Christic paradigm we are called to follow. In fact, the paradigm all through the bible is making a preference to diversity and not to conformity or uniformity. The story of the tower of Babel points to a decentralisation but equally a call to learn to know the other, the image of the Pauline body speaks of a mutual interdependence, Pentecost is about building alliances between big differences, the dance of the Trinity, the perichoresis, where we are giving each other space and balance to develop our diverse gifts and identities and finally all of us have to be through the word, through dia-logos, to really represent God, in God’s image and likeness, in naming and creating clarity in an ever expanding universe through our words, through dialogue.

To draft a new theological anthropology to be of interest not only for a visible unity between the Christians but also for a creative politics in our world we have to start from the following points of departure:

  • Reality and nature always have precedence over ideas; nature and reality is life, while ideas are manmade ideologies even Christian doctrinal ideologies which ought to respond and correspond to real and present life;
  • the whole as a relational web has precedence to the individual parts although each individual part has to be fully respected;
  • unity in diversity has precedence over divisions and conformity;
  • time has precedence over space which means to focus on processes and an open travel, an open pilgrimage, and not on the surface, the room and the fenced-off territory.

To let go of a rigid doctrine, ecclesial power and guard of territory whether we are talking of politics and political ideology, ecclesial structures or dogma, we have to turn to the human being, as well as to every single organism, in a fresh and creative way. A new theological anthropology will need a deconstruction of present doctrine and a recreation of our fundamental God-talk. Then our preaching may give hope, be mercy and create meaning in our world’s present disruptive reality.

Sr Madeleine Fredell OP


[1] Marc 10:43

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