Progress in Unity?: Fifty Years of Theology Within the World Council of Churches, 1945-1995 : a Study Guide

As an expert and lively tour-guide, Brinkman takes the reader through the breathtaking landscape of a half-century of ecumenical dialogue. The author makes an invaluable contribution by his deft selection of documents, his thought-provoking commentary on key issues, and his keen discernment of the missionary challenge that faces the church of Christ as it travels on the road to greater visible unity. the work is equally suitable for personal reading and for the college or seminary classroom. A veritiable feast for ecumenical and evangelical readers. This work is a refreshing stimulus to reflection, prayer, and action for the unity and mission of the church in a troubled world. George Vandervelde President of the North American Academy of Ecumenists, Professor of Systematic Theology, Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada One thing becomes clear from Martien Brinkman's book : those who claim that the ecumenical movement went into a deadlock have not studies its results. Most people suffer from a lack of memory when it comes to the history of ecumenical theology during the past 70 years. This book provides medicine for ecumenical amnesia. It deals especially with the Faith and Order Movement and Commission, within the World Council of Churches. There flows, from Brinkman's book a whole new stream of an ecumenical theological tradition which is scarcely known, even to academic theologians. This tradition treats of such matters as Scripture and Tradition, Faith and Sacraments, Church, World and Kingdom of God. This book provides an excellent overview and in-depth evaluation of the major currents in this developing ecumenical tradition. It will certainly promote its reception in the churches and its study in the academy. At the same time, however, it keeps an eye open for the difficulties and tensions of the dialogue between ecumenical amd evangelical Christians, and between the theological methods of the North and the South. It will be difficult to find any more reliable study-guide to the results of the multilateral ecumenical dialogues of the twentieth century. Anton Houtepen Professor of Ecumenism, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands This book, conceived as a study-guide to the Faith and Order Movement, does precisely what it sets out to do and does it well. It brings the reader into close contact with the documents and studies published by this influential section of the World Council of Churches. Such an inventory comes at the right time, just as the Commission on Faith and Order takes stock after the World Conference of Santiago, and under the guidance of a new director. It is no secret that Faith and Order has been invited to reflect upon its future orientation. The well-documented and orderly survey which Prof. brinkman offers us here will certainly be of help in such a process. Jos Vercruysse S.J. Professor of Church History and Ecumenism, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome