“We have come a long way since the 1920s! There was no World Council of Churches back then and the important ecumenical energy of the Second Vatican Council was still forty years to come. And yet the ground breaking initiatives of the Malines Conversations continue to give us much to reflect upon. As I have moved about in ecumenical circles over the past year, talking to lay people and church leaders from all denominations, I have heard not a few of them worry that ecumenism really means absorption. There is an anxiety that traditions will be lost and identities erased in a ‘melting pot’ style of Christianity. This fear and the assumptions which fuel it is likely behind a noticeable movement away from the ecumenical project in favour of focusing on denominational identities. After all, it is said, in this Christian world of shrinking churches and diminishing returns it is necessary to focus on one’s own tradition and save what one can!
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