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Recent
documents considered by these conversations
54 Following on the initial focus on the United Reformed Church, its two particular insights from the Reformed tradition, and on the nature of its commitment to the full visible unity of the Church, the group decided to consider recent documents from the other two churches which bore on these matters. The three chosen were the Methodist Conference Statement on the Nature of the Church, Called to Love and Praise (1999), the Church of England House of Bishops paper, Bishops in Communion: collegiality in the service of the Koinonia of the Church (2000) and the report of the Faith and Order Committee of the Methodist Church to the Conference in 2000, Episkope and Episcopacy, with its attendant guidelines.
Called to Love and Praise
55 After a Methodist presentation of the report, Called to Love and Praise, which emphasised that it was the first authoritative statement on the nature of the Church by the Methodist Church since 1935, the other two partner churches responded. Having welcomed the considerable extent to which they could endorse the statement, discussion focussed on areas of difference or disagreement.
56 Some of the challenges posed by the Church of England response could equally well have been addressed to the United Reformed Church. It commented on the inclusive understanding of the unity already given by God (3.1.2) Ð a unity which apparently included those churches where the sacraments of Eucharist and Baptism were not celebrated. The Methodist use of the phrase "the priesthood of all believers" was noted (4.5) and the question asked as to whether there was in Methodism, as in Anglicanism, an intrinsic link between the ordained ministry and the ministry of Word and Sacrament. Called to Love and Praise speaks of the ordained ministers as "representative persons" (4.5.10), meaning that they represent the people before God.
57 Both the Church of England and the United Reformed Church members sought further explanation of what it meant to say that the connexional principle enshrined a vital truth about the nature of the Church. (4.6 )
More work is needed on a shared understanding of the nature of the Church. More work is also needed on the different understandings of the way to full visible unity.
Bishops in Communion
58 Although Bishops in Communion takes koinonia in its very broadest sense as its starting point, relating the koinonia of the Church to the communion of the Trinity and to God's mission to the whole of creation, the document's primary purpose is to describe how the collegiality of the episcopate can serve the koinonia of the Church.
59 A United Reformed Church response to Bishops in Communion led the group into important areas of difference and convergence, mainly but not only, between the Church of England and the United Reformed Church. The heart of the difference lay in the understanding of the nature of representative ministry within the context of the ministry of the whole people of God. This pointed to a discussion which went beyond episcopacy. There appeared to be considerable convergence in practice in the work of a Church of England bishop, a United Reformed Church synod moderator and a Methodist District chair. However, the bishop's role as chief minister of Word and Sacrament in the area of his jurisdiction, together with his ministry of personal episkope, seemed to differentiate him from the synod moderator and the district chair. Because of the different histories and different ecclesiologies which lie behind the three synods and the personal ministries related to them in the three churches, there are considerable differences as to when and how authority is exercised personally and when and how synodically.
Episkope and Episcopacy
60 A Methodist member introduced the report, Episkope and Episcopacy which had been presented to the Methodist Conference in 2000. Of particular importance was the fourth of the guidelines which were adopted as a summary statement of the Methodist Church's position on episkope and episcopacy. It states:
61 At present, it is the President of Conference who most clearly exercises a role of personal episkope comparable to that of a bishop in the Church of England. The President (and Past-Presidents) ordain new ministers and act as a focus for the unity of the Methodist Church. However, Presidents serve for only one year. The model of episcopacy being explored by the covenanting churches in Wales, and by the Scottish Church Initiative for Union, where the emphasis is on leadership in mission and the exercise of pastoral care for ministers and people, points more obviously to the role of Methodist District Chair or United Reformed Church Synod Moderator. The third of the guidelines adopted at the Methodist Conference in 2000 states that the Methodist Church believes a key function of episkope is to encourage the Church's participation in God's mission.
62 In the context of this report, the United Reformed Church members were asked how willing the United Reformed Church would be to accept these guidelines. They replied that the world-wide Reformed tradition already had bishops, and valued personal leadership, but it looked for apostolic continuity through the whole Christian community rather than through the bishop. In the context of the Scottish Church Initiative for Union, episcopacy and eldership were being offered as gifts from particular traditions to the united church and as such were being studied and developed. The United Reformed Church and the Methodist Church were fully committed to that process.
Further work is needed on the ways in which personal episkope is officially understood and actually practised in the three churches. Because the Methodist and United Reformed Churches are in three nations, it would be useful to include the episcopal churches in Scotland and Wales in this work.
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