Silver Jubilee lecture No. 4 – Ecumenism: Figuring out Interconnected Christianities
Our Silver Jubilee lecture no. 4 will be held in the Healey Room, Westminster College, 4pm to 6pm today, 14 October 2021.
Please contact Rachel Simonson, our new Coordinator, to book your place, or obtain the online link: centre [at] cccw.cam.ac.uk
Theme: Transfiguring World Christianity
Ecumenism:
Figuring out Interconnected Christianities
Chaired by
Dr Jenny Leith, Dean of Studies, CCCW
To register, email centre [at] cccw.cam.ac.uk
This fourth lecture in the five-part CCCW Silver Jubilee Lecture series explores the possibilities of an
ecumenism that can hold together body, mind and heart so that more creative and holistic ways forward
can be found than either only ‘working and acting together’, or concentrating on ‘finding doctrinal
agreement’. It will explore the necessity for and the hope of ‘decolonising’ the ecumenical movement,
recognising its origins in the global North and the dominance so far within it of particular discourses and
peoples, and opening up the possibility of a more truly ecumenical movement within world Christianity.
And it will reflect on the trajectory within the movement from ‘the unity of Christians’ towards ‘the unity of all humankind’ and even ‘the unity of all creation’, by asking what ecumenism is really for within the mission of God. The lecture will be honest about challenges, but always draw hope from the power of the Holy Spirit to celebrate movement and renewal and to work towards the fulfilment of all things in the Kingdom of God.
Susan Durber has served as minister with churches in the very different contexts of Manchester, Salford,
Oxford and Taunton, as Principal of Westminster College in Cambridge and as Theology Advisor to Christian Aid. At WCC she has been involved in The Church: Towards a Common Vision, and on moral discernment. She has also been involved in work on the theme of the upcoming WCC Assembly and in ‘pilgrim visits’ to church groups often at the margins of the ecumenical movement. She is committed to making way for new kinds of ecumenism as the churches continue to call one another to visible unity.
