The General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns (GCCUIC) addresses the interreligious and ecumenical concerns of The United Methodist Church. The GCCUIC's office is located at The Interchurch Center in New York City. The Commission's President is Bishop Mary Ann Swenson and the General Secretary is Stephen J. Sidorak Jr. The Ecumenical Officer of the Council of Bishops is Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader and serves as the corporate ecumenical officer of The United Methodist Church, working in collaboration with GCCUIC.
This organization is the United Methodist Church's face in the ecumenical community developing relationships with other church bodies and is diligently seeking relationships with other faith bodies such as Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish communities to manifest the unity God has already given and for which Christ prayed (John 17:20-21). It also diligently seeks relationships with other faith bodies, heeding the prophets’ and Jesus’ call to live lives of compassion, peace, justice, and stewardship of our natural world.
The GCCUIC’s leadership role in ecumenism extends to facilitating deeper relationships and understandings within the United Methodist connection and with other churches in the Methodist family. For example, the GCCUIC and United Methodist Communications developed a DVD/CD, Can We Talk? Christian Conversations About Homosexuality, that facilitates the building of understanding among United Methodist Church members who may disagree on the controversial issue of homosexuality. The resource does not advocate a position, but teaches methods of holy conferencing around potentially divisive issues and provides material for church groups to explore their positions within theological and biblical parameters. The Commission’s relationships with other Methodist bodies are mainly facilitated through its membership in the World Methodist Council and the Pan-Methodist Commission.
The GCCUIC has engaged in bilateral dialogues to further United Methodist relationships with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. The UMC and ELCA are now in full communion. An agreement of Interim Eucharistic Sharing has also been reached between the UMC and the Episcopal Church. A statement with a study manual, Make Us One With Christ, has been distributed for joint study in local congregations. Dialogues with the Catholic Church included a visit to Vatican City in April 2006, where Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Pontifical Council for the Promoting Christian Unity received an official United Methodist delegation and discussed aspects of dialogue and relationship and the global nature of the two communions. In addition, GCCUIC continues to initiate and pursue dialogues with other faith communities.
The United Methodist Church’s relationships with other church bodies are also strengthened through the GCCUIC’s membership in the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America (NCCCUSA) and the World Council of Churches (WCC). Recently, NCCCUSA initiatives have included a focus on addressing poverty and church development through the Special Commission for the Just Rebuilding of the Gulf Coast. Plus, the eradication of poverty, malaria, and HIV-AIDS has been a focus of the WCC.
Interfaith relations have been addressed by affiliations with the NCCCUSA’s Interfaith Relations Commission, Religions for Peace, as well as several Muslim and Jewish organizations. The Interfaith Relations Commission has developed print and electronic educational and resource materials to be used by local congregations and regional groups for interfaith encounters. The Commission also prints resources for its congregations, including “Basic Facts About Islam”, “Guidelines for Interfaith Dialogue”, a study guide entitled The Holocaust: A Christian Reckoning of the Soul, and Yom HaShoah worship materials.
The GCCUIC is committed to ecumenism, interfaith dialogue, and unity within The United Methodist Church. It is unified through the one body and one Spirit to witness to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Working to discover how divine grace is evident in other faith communities, the Commission helps discern how to be Christian neighbors and witnesses. As a result, the GCCUIC fully commits to representing The United Methodist Church in fulfilling Christ’s mission.
Churches Uniting in Christ (CUIC) is an ecumenical organization that brings together mainline American denominations, and was inaugurated on January 20, 2002, in Memphis, Tennessee on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. It is the successor organization to the Consultation on Church Union.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelicalism. The present denomination was founded in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, by union of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. The UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley in England, as well as the Great Awakening in the United States. As such, the church's theological orientation is decidedly Wesleyan. It embraces liturgical worship, holiness, and evangelical elements.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Union of Utrecht, the Lutheran World Federation, the Anglican Communion, the Mennonite churches, the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Pentecostal churches, the Moravian Church and the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. Notably, the Catholic Church is not a full member, although it sends delegates to meetings who have observer status.
Full communion is a communion or relationship of full agreement among different Christian denominations or Christian individuals that share certain essential principles of Christian theology. Views vary among denominations on exactly what constitutes full communion, but typically when two or more denominations are in full communion it enables services and celebrations, such as the Eucharist, to be shared among congregants or clergy of any of them with the full approval of each.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any non-denominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2022, it has approximately 2.9 million baptized members in 8,640 congregations.
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is an ecumenical Christian observance in the Christian calendar that is celebrated internationally. It is kept annually between Ascension Day and Pentecost in the Southern Hemisphere and between 18 January and 25 January in the Northern Hemisphere. It is an octave, that is, an observance lasting eight days.
The Canadian Council of Churches is a broad and inclusive ecumenical body, now representing 26 member churches including Anglican; Eastern and Roman Catholic; Evangelical; Free Church; Eastern and Oriental Orthodox; and Historic Protestant traditions. Together these member churches represent 13,500 worshiping communities and comprise 85% of the Christians in Canada.
Ut unum sint is an encyclical by Pope John Paul II of 25 May 1995. It was one of 14 encyclicals issued by John Paul II. Cardinal Georges Cottier, Theologian emeritus of the Pontifical Household, was influential in drafting the encyclical.
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, frequently referred to as the Lambeth Quadrilateral or the Lambeth-Chicago Quadrilateral, is a four-point articulation of Anglican identity, often cited as encapsulating the fundamentals of the Anglican Communion's doctrine and as a reference point for ecumenical discussion with other Christian denominations. The four points are:
The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation;
The creeds, as the sufficient statement of Christian faith;
The dominical sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion;
The historic episcopate, locally adapted.
The Catholic Church has engaged in the modern ecumenical movement especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and the issuing of the decree Unitatis redintegratio and the declaration Dignitatis humanae. It was at the Council that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was created. Those outside of the Catholic Church were categorised as heretics or schismatics, but in many contexts today, to avoid offence, the euphemism "separated brethren" is used.
Branch theory is an ecclesiological proposition that the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church includes various different Christian denominations whether in formal communion or not. The theory is often incorporated in the Protestant notion of an invisible Christian Church structure binding them together.
Lukas Vischer was a Swiss Reformed Theologian. From 1961 he was Research Secretary of the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Faith and Order Commission in Geneva and from 1966 until 1979 the Commission’s Director. From 1980 until 1992 he headed the Protestant Office for Ecumenism in Switzerland and taught Ecumenical Theology at the Theological Faculty of the University of Bern. From 1982 until 1989 he was moderator of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ (WARC) Theology department and from 1982 until 2008 moderator of the John Knox International Reformed Centre’s Programme Commission in Geneva. In these years, ecological responsibility of the Churches became a focal point of his work.
The Rev. Dr. Larry D. Pickens is a graduate of North Park University and holds a master of theology degree and master of divinity degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, a doctorate in ministry from Chicago Theological Seminary, and a Juris Doctor from DePaul University College of Law. Larry is the executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. Larry is the former general secretary of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns of the United Methodist Church. During his tenure as the ecumenical staff officer these significant events took place. Pickens served as the Ecumenical Director of The Lehigh Conference of Churches in Allentown, Pennsylvania from 2014-20.
The Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, previously named the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU), is a dicastery within the Holy See whose origins are associated with the Second Vatican Council which met intermittently from 1962 to 1965.
The Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs is the principal ecumenical and interfaith organization of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Jeffrey Gros was an American Catholic ecumenist and theologian. A member of the De La Salle Christian Brothers, Gros had served as a high school history teacher, university professor, associate director of the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; director of Faith and Order for the National Council of Churches; and president of the Society for Pentecostal Studies. He is the author or editor of over 20 books, 310 articles, and an uncounted number of book reviews. He died of pancreatic cancer in Chicago, IL, on 12 August 2013 at the age of 75.
Pope Francis has had main contacts with those of other Christian faiths, with those of other religious beliefs, and with non-believers.
Emilio Castro was a Methodist minister from Uruguay. He served as general secretary of the World Council of Churches from 1985 to 1992.
Jeanne Audrey Powers (1932–2017) was a leader within The United Methodist Church, an advocate for women and LGBTQ+ people in the church, and one of the first women ordained in the denomination.
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