Papers by Odair Pedroso Mateus
Contextuality in Reformed Europe, 2004
This text was written as a contribution to the study process "The Alliance beyond 2004", in prepa... more This text was written as a contribution to the study process "The Alliance beyond 2004", in preparation for WARC's 2004 general council. It underlines the continuity between the Reformation and the ecumenical movement; it reviews some official statements about WARC's ecumenical engagement; it lists significant aspects of its ecumenical engagement and the challenges it faces.
These five notes offer a concise overview of the discussion on unity as the aim of the ecumenical... more These five notes offer a concise overview of the discussion on unity as the aim of the ecumenical movement, from its early days until the recent discussions about the challenge represented by world Christianity. It concludes with a reference to a counter-cultural ecumenism of compassion".
The Presbyterian missionary and ecumenist John Mackay, chairman of the International Missionary C... more The Presbyterian missionary and ecumenist John Mackay, chairman of the International Missionary Council, was concerned in 1948 with the decision of the newly created Lutheran World Federation to establish Lutheran congregations in the mission fields of the global south, instead of encouraging them to join post-denominational, united churches. Thus, Throughout the 1950s, the World Allianceof Reformed Churches will understand and state its role within the ecumenical movement in tension with "denominationalism" or "confessionalism". This led the WARC and the WCC to establish what is today the Conference of Secretaries of Christian World Communions in the late 1950s.
This article analyses the confessional elements and the ecumenical impulses of the 1875 constitut... more This article analyses the confessional elements and the ecumenical impulses of the 1875 constitution of the World Presbyterian Alliance, later World Alliance of Reformed Churches, today World Communion of Reformed Churches.
Constituted by churches which adopted different Reformed confessions, the Alliance makes of the "harmony with the consensus" of those confessions the marker of its identity. But it never managed to reach an agreement on what it meant by "consensus" of Reformed confessions.
At the same time, its pioneers, such as Philip Schaff and William Blaikie, saw the Alliance as a first step towards a kind of World Council of Reformation or Protestant Churches.
Verena Hammes and others (eds), In der Liebe Christi weitergehen: Zukunft und neu Aufbruch weltweiter Ökumene - ein jahr nach Karlshue, 2023
This short note about the contemporary meaning of celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the Counc... more This short note about the contemporary meaning of celebrating the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea suggests Jesus of Nazareth's compassion for the marginalised as the hermeneutical key of Nicaea's homoousios and invites to a human-divine compassion in the context of global megatrends shaping tomorrow's world and post-ecumenical global Christianity.
Ashish Amos and others (eds), Church on the Move: A Festschrift for Rev. Enos Das Pradhan , 2005
The Taiwanese theologian Choan-Seng Song served the World Council of Churches and the World Allia... more The Taiwanese theologian Choan-Seng Song served the World Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in different capacities. This essay reviews some of his writings about the ecumenical movement embodied by the World Council of Churches as well as his addresses (1998-2002) as President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. They have in common a non-conformist, people-centred critique of organised forms of ecumenicity.
https://oikoumene.org/news/1920-4-towards-a-universal-conference-of-the-church-of-christ-on-life-and-work, 2020
This is the fourth of a series of stories celebrating in 2020 major ecumenical advances of 1920. ... more This is the fourth of a series of stories celebrating in 2020 major ecumenical advances of 1920. This text tells the story of the August 1920 meeting held in Geneva in preparation for the global conference of churches on issues of human life and work, later held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1925. Initially a pan-protestant movement, it becomes in 1920 a fully ecumenical process.
The Ecumenical Review, 75(2), 2023
I have argued elsewhere that "throughout the 20 th century, no other movement or institution embo... more I have argued elsewhere that "throughout the 20 th century, no other movement or institution embodied with comparable longevity and persistence the service of theology to the search for Christian unity as the 1910 movement on Faith and Order and its successor after 1948, the World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order." 1 This article 2 offers an introductory overview of six international Faith and Order conferences-five of them called "world conferences"-which played a crucial theological role in the ecumenical advance that marked the 20 th century 3 .
World Council of Churches' website
This is the third of a series of short texts on the ecumenical movement in 1920. The 1910 Edinbur... more This is the third of a series of short texts on the ecumenical movement in 1920. The 1910 Edinburgh missionary conference appointed a Continuation Committee to implement it decisions. The Continuation Committee relied once again on the leadership of Joseph Oldham and John Mott. It created the periodical "International Review of Missions" and established, especially in Asia and Africa, national missionary councils that pioneered national councils of churches or regional councils of churches. The Great War of 1914-1918 crashed the spirit of unity and virtually paralysed the ecumenical work. A meeting held in Crans, near Geneva, in 1920 was the moment of healing and reconciliation. It led to the decision to establish an International Missionary Council.
https://oikoumene.org/news/1920-2-god-wills-fellowship-the-anglican-bishops-appeal-to-unity, 2020
The appeal to Christian unity launched by the Anglican bishops from all over the world in July 19... more The appeal to Christian unity launched by the Anglican bishops from all over the world in July 1920 had a strong impact not only on interchurch relations in Britain ("domestic reunion") but also on the global ecumenical movement. Held a few weeks after the launch if the Appeal, the August 1920 preparatory meeting for a world conference on Faith and Order benefited from the new perspectives opened by the Anglican Appeal.
World Council of Churches website: https://www.oikoumene.org/news/1920-1-a-beautiful-letter-from-the-church-of-constantinople, 2020
This article re-creates the ecumenical context, marked by the Student Christian Movement, in whic... more This article re-creates the ecumenical context, marked by the Student Christian Movement, in which the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople issued in 1920 a letter or encyclical, drafted by Metropolitan Germanos of Seleukia, inviting other Christian churches to establish a "League of Churches". The first general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Visser 't Hooft would contend in 1959 that the use of the biblical term koinonia in that letter was a tacit recognition of "vestigia ecclesiae", a real though imperfect communion among Christian churches.
World Alliance of Reformed Churches At its 2005 Executive Committee meeting, the World Alliance o... more World Alliance of Reformed Churches At its 2005 Executive Committee meeting, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches adopted a vision statement meant to guide and integrate its different programmes and activities. The vision statement reads: "We are the World Alliance of Reformed Churches consisting of Reformed, Congregational, Presbyterian, Waldensian, United and Uniting churches. We are called to be a communion of churches joined together in Christ, to promote the renewal and the unity of the church, and to participate in God's transformation of the world" 1. The purpose of the following notes is to help the WARC leadership to reach a common understanding of the new vision and to begin a reflection on its implications for our common life as a fellowship of churches.
The global gathering of churches of the Reformed family held in Accra, Ghana, in July 2004 culmin... more The global gathering of churches of the Reformed family held in Accra, Ghana, in July 2004 culminated in the adoption of what is known as The Accra Confession, a theological critique of the exploitation of nature and subaltern peoples, aligned with the 1934 Barmen Declaration and the 1982-1986 Belhar Confession. This paper offers an overview of the results of that general council and show how the notion of Empire (instead of globalisation) instructed the analysis of global situation, theological discernment and their implications for the mission and witness of Reformed churches.
The Ecumenical Review, 71.3, 2019
Address on the future of the programmatic work of the World Council of Churches' Commission on Fa... more Address on the future of the programmatic work of the World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order, on the occasion of its 2019 meeting, held in Nanjing, China.
In my 2022 address to the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, I evoked the challenges faced by Fai... more In my 2022 address to the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, I evoked the challenges faced by Faith and Order on the eve of its 1952 world conference, and how the struggle with difficulties led to a revolution in its method.
The Ecumenical Review, 2021
These 14 propositions were drafted in preparation for an online consultation on "Teaching Ecumeni... more These 14 propositions were drafted in preparation for an online consultation on "Teaching Ecumenism in the Context of World Christianity", held by the World Council of Churches' Ecumenical Institute in June 2021. They are independent but interconnected by the relevance of each of them for the challenge of teaching ecumenics in the circumstances of today's Christianities.
Following the decision of the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission to hold a wor... more Following the decision of the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission to hold a world conference in 2025 with focus on the ecumenical significance of the 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council (Nicaea 325 CE), I worote these notes in 2019, about the ups-and-downs of the preparations for the 1993 worldd conference, as background contribution to planning Nicaea2025.
This short paper tells the story of the decision taken in 1937 by the ecumenical movement on Fait... more This short paper tells the story of the decision taken in 1937 by the ecumenical movement on Faith and Order to join the ecumenical movement on Life and Work to create a World Council of Churches. Life and Work's opposition to National Socialism and "German Christians" is not fully appreciated by some Faith and Order Leaders. Archbishop William Temple, head of Faith and Order, leads the decision making process.
The Ecumenical Review
In February 2022, the central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) agreed the proposa... more In February 2022, the central committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) agreed the proposal for a World Conference on Faith and Order to be held in 2025 to coincide with the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. This will be the sixth such world conference since the First World Conference on Faith and Order was held in 1927 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Against this background, this article reviews the history of the World Conferences on Faith and Order from the origins of the Faith and Order movement to the Fifth World Conference on Faith and Order in 1993. Although created autonomous and self‐governing, organized around regular world conferences, with the creation of the WCC in 1948, the Faith and Order movement became a commission of the WCC.
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Papers by Odair Pedroso Mateus
Constituted by churches which adopted different Reformed confessions, the Alliance makes of the "harmony with the consensus" of those confessions the marker of its identity. But it never managed to reach an agreement on what it meant by "consensus" of Reformed confessions.
At the same time, its pioneers, such as Philip Schaff and William Blaikie, saw the Alliance as a first step towards a kind of World Council of Reformation or Protestant Churches.
Constituted by churches which adopted different Reformed confessions, the Alliance makes of the "harmony with the consensus" of those confessions the marker of its identity. But it never managed to reach an agreement on what it meant by "consensus" of Reformed confessions.
At the same time, its pioneers, such as Philip Schaff and William Blaikie, saw the Alliance as a first step towards a kind of World Council of Reformation or Protestant Churches.