Rite and Reason:If ecumenism is to be really effective it must broaden its horizons very considerably, writes Canon Ian Ellis
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which ends on Thursday, is an established time in the Christian year, but as the traditional churches deepen in their relationships with one another a major new challenge facing ecumenism is how Christianity is going to cope with the increasing divergence between its traditional expressions and the new, less institutional forms that it is taking.
The latter communities are, indeed, growing rapidly.
While certain dogmatic questions remain unresolved between the traditional churches - such as ordination and Eucharistic sharing - this new challenge is in danger of not being fully recognised within the traditional churches because of such older preoccupations, which, in any case, are being seen as less and less relevant even by adherents of the traditional churches themselves.
Public reaction to last year's Easter Day concelebration of the Eucharist by Drogheda Augustinians and the local Church of Ireland rector showed that the "popular vote" on the matter was clearly in sympathy with the canonically irregular action.
In his recent book, Called to the One Hope - A New Ecumenical Epoch, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev Samuel Kobia, makes it clear where he sees Christianity heading, and his argument is backed by striking statistics.
The global south is the key.
Dr Kobia points to the fact that the rise of Christianity in Africa in particular has been "relentless". While there were 10 million Christians on the continent in 1910, amounting to 10 per cent of the African population, today there are 360 million Christians in Africa amounting to almost 50 per cent of the population.
He quotes Martin Marty's computer forecast that by 2025 the population of the world's Christians is expected to be about 2.6 billion with 50 per cent of these in Africa and Latin America and another 17 per cent in Asia.
However, not surprisingly, there is some division of opinion over future religious trends and the US Centre for World Mission has estimated that Christianity is growing at approximately 2.3 per cent annually, with Islam's annual growth rate somewhat higher at 2.9 per cent.
The world population growth rate is currently estimated at 1.14 per cent, having peaked at 2.2 per cent in the 1960s.
Whatever the future trend, however, the growth of global Christianity today lies firmly in the global south.
While a central feature of the western image of the religious future is of a rising, fundamentalist Islam and a declining Christianity, the reality is a rising conservative Christianity alongside a rising Islam, which is characteristically religiously conservative.
Religion has a healthy future, it appears, even if its overall, global character will not be what we in Ireland might immediately associate with church life.
Christian growth is fuelled to a large extent by the emergence of the new Christian movements and churches that are passionate and powerful, to use Dr Kobia's adjectives. This new-style Christianity is abounding and, indeed, is influencing the traditional churches which often seek to adopt some of the new ways which are seen to be delivering numerical growth.
What is fundamental in this growth is the rejection of heavy, ecclesiastical structures and an embracing of congregationalist styles of church life with a close Christian fellowship.
As churches in Europe agonize over giving a "soul" to the EU and are concerned to build up relations with secular authorities, most of the growing churches of the world are focusing simply on preaching the word as they understand it - usually in conservative theological terms.
The churches of Europe have signed up to the Charta Oecumenica, which is full of excellent ideas and priorities for church life. Yet, its approach is a long way from the straightforward and fervent religiosity of the typical style of contemporary, growing global Christianity.
Of course, denominations have to be true to themselves and numerical decline does not in itself automatically invalidate a Christian tradition, because such decline can be for many different reasons and is not necessarily inexorable.
Yet, if the ecumenical movement is to be really effective in bringing together all Christian believers in a common fellowship, it will be necessary for ecumenists to broaden their traditional horizons very considerably indeed.
Canon Ian Ellis is rector of Newcastle, Co Down and editor of theChurch of Ireland Gazette