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THE ECUMENICAL MARGINS
Christian Unity for the Edges of Church and Society
Saturday October 30th 2004 -
10-30am to 4pm
St Martin’s Centre, The Bullring, Birmingham
The Ecumenical Margins
explored from many angles how the power of the
movement for Unity is actually lived out theologically, and realised among
those who are at the edge of life in the Church and in society. Click on the names below to read the speakers' papers. Click here for the Proceedings of the Colloquium, with an introduction by Dr Martin Conway, President of the Society.
Jean Mayland, for many years Church Life Secretary at CTBI, shared the
first fruits of her post-retirement study on this very subject. In many ways
the event was her idea. She brought her passion about the obstacles to the role
of women in the Church and its ministry, together with her recent thinking
on the pastoral work of the Church among newly arrived ethnic communities, the
divorced and separated, homosexual people, and others who all in some way the
Churches find it difficult to embrace. What does this say about our strivings
to achieve unity between our separate Churches, and how does our ecumenical
theory work out in practice for individual lives?
Garnet Parris is Director of the Centre for Black Theology at the
University of Birmingham. The Centre has been running some ground breaking
courses to enable black and minority ethnic Christians - both those in
'mainstream' UK churches and those in black-led churches - to gain access to
theological study and to give black Christians (who after all form the majority
of churchgoers in the UK nowadays) a due voice and role in local and national
church life and society. A high number of those who began studies with a
preliminary certificate proved so able that they transferred to working on
postgraduate studies. At our 2003 St Albans Study Day, Bishop Joe Aldred asked
where the representation from black Christians was. The Centre is going a long
way to restoring the balance.
John O'Toole is the Director of the Archdiocese of Southwark's Christian
Education Centre. He has also been actively involved in English
ARC. CEC has been pioneering training for parishes in making worship
and church life fully accessible to people with learning and physical
disabilities. It is a movement which has transformed Catholic churches in South
London and Kent, to the benefit of all. The resources and training at CEC has
been developed and delivered ecumenically. They have also won admiration from
the secular authorities, now charged by statute with providing for the
spiritual needs of those in their care. There is also keen interest and
collaboration with key Muslim figures, delighted to have tools for reaching out
spiritually to the learning disabled in their own midst. The story is of
immense spiritual power to be found at these particular 'margins'.
Mark Woodruff, works for the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts
on education and social development. In the secular charity world there is a
growing consensus that addressing people's needs effectively requires
multi-agency partnerships and more integration of the wide range of essential
services each body provides separately. There is also awareness that service
users are not isolated individuals, but people linked to families, networks of
friends, and all kinds of other social links. Increasingly the secular
voluntary sector is working ecumenically, and the changing face of charity work
is promising for society. Do the churches need to re-learn the model of
ecumenical integration and indeed unity itself from the secular work the
churches not so long ago inspired and set in place?