Ecumenical Encounters

So this is the second post of today, but I thought I should fill everyone in due to the fact that it’s been several weeks since my last post at Halloween.

The past few days have been quite interesting. I’ve found myself involved in interesting ecumenical discussion, sometimes heated debates, without looking to engage in that type of discussion. I guess that comes with the context in which I find myself and if I am to participate in the community I will inevitably enter into a conversation about faith, tradition, and culture. It is quite interesting and I have enjoyed engaging with my colleagues.

I’m on the library committee and I have library duty on Wednesday nights. I was in the library on Wednesday, reading for class instead of surfing the web, and Sung a Presbyterian from South Korea walked by, said hi and sat down at the study desk facing mine. From there we started talking about the program and he opened up and told me that he’s been a bit depressed and disconnected from the community so far and he’s just now making a conscious effort to open up and interact with everyone. I was surprised to hear this because he had always been very warm in his greetings to everyone and seemed to be very open and friendly. He said that much of the problem was that he felt “like a child” because during the intensive English course during the summer, everyone was on an equal level, but when the native English speakers arrived he felt that he could not communicate with us and therefore withdrew from the community as a whole. He is now realizing that we all have something to contribute and that he wants to learn from us and in turn teach us about his culture and context. I think both of us were surprised by his candor in talking to me, but it was a great conversation and something from which we both benefited.

Last night I had another interesting ecumenical encounter. I arrived to dinner about 5 minutes before they closed the kitchen. We were having beginning French at 7:15 so I had about 20 minutes to get my food, eat and make it to French. Most everyone had eaten and had gone back to Petite Bossey, but there was one table where people were gathered so I took the last remaining seat and began eating my dinner and listening to the conversation. Well I soon found myself in participating in a heated debate about women in ministry. At the beginning I sat back and listened because there appeared to be some miscommunication due to the language barrier, so I was trying to figure out what people were saying so as to clarify the situation. Naomi from the Church of Christ in Nigeria was arguing with Andre, an Orthodox from Russia/Ukraine, about the ordination of women in the Orthodox church. They were having one conversation and trying to talk over each other and then Cosmin from the Romanian Orthodox church interjected his two cents and on it went. I sat back at one point and smiled to myself because I saw it as a joke that started with what do 4 Orthodox men, a Liberian Lutheran, a Nigerian Christian, a Filipino Baptist, and a Disciple have in common…not a whole lot that I can see and then I had to laugh because honestly the things that divide us are so few, yet so fundamental to our traditions. Anyway back to the debate…

Now I came in and the conversation had, from what I could tell, been going on for a while. Naomi was arguing with Andre because Andre had said that he didn’t think women would ever be ordained in the Orthodox church and his basis for that was because there was no need for it and there was no scriptural basis for it. I mentioned Peobie and Priscilla and he said that they were not ministers but rather deacons and therefore that was not basis for the ordination of women. Before I was able to refute by saying that neither is there Biblical basis for the use of incense and icons in worship, Andre was drawn back into an argument with Naomi and Cosmin. From what I can gather I think the issue was not so much the ordination of women but rather that the Orthodox church’s doctrine is sent and unchangeable and Naomi had serious issues with that. The ordination of women was just an example of that. At this point I’m having a hard time deciphering what was said and what issue was being debated, and in the end the conversation was cut short by the arrival of the French teacher, but I’m sure it will come up again and I hope the group involved in the discussion will be larger and more diverse.

Today at lunch I sat down to eat with Samuel, a Catholic from India, Rafat a Presbyterian from Egypt, and Sung from South Korea. We mainly talked about our respective Missiology research paper topics, but Sung and I began talking about our churches and it seems that the Presbyterian church in South Korea is much like the Disciples church in structure, and I thought that it would be interesting to bring Aimee from the Presbyterian church in the U.S. into the conversation to see if and how the cultural differences tend to shape the polity of a denomination more so than the denominational affiliation.

The past few days have been engaging and interesting and I’m curious to see if the trend continues over the next couple of days. I’m planning to go to Geneva tomorrow with Aimee and Avril and then attend the Lutheran church in Geneva on Sunday, so who knows what other ecumenical encounters might come my way.

As a side note, I want to thank those of you that have left comments and have sent emails. I also want to apologize if I have not responded. Know that I appreciate your comments and your thoughts and prayers, even if I find it hard to respond to each comment individually. Thank you and many blessings!

Also the picture below is from the Scottish festival that Aimee, Anna, Avril, and I went to last weekend. (and just to add a random bit of information…out of the 10 women in the program, 5 have names that start with the letter A; Aimee, Anett, Anna, Avril, and Angelina…interesting no?)