Theological Perspectives of Conflict, Contestation and Community Formation from an Ecumenical Angle
Authors: Mayer Annemarie C. 
Published: May 2024

“That they all may be one” (Jn 17:21) … Does, after more than 2000 years of church history full of conflict and contestation, this famous prayer of Jesus not rather seem like a pipe dream that further broadens the gap between aspirations and reality? Is ecumenism just a utopian attempt to ‘uncrack’ the egg that has got broken more and more by each new church division? Or is there more to dissent, to conflict and contestation from a theological angle than just the alarmed hushing up of dissenting voices by streamlined, objection-shunning ecclesial authorities? Given the controversy stories of Jesus in the gospels, is contestation indeed an ‘extraordinary’ phenomenon not befitting a church that professes to be ‘one, holy, catholic, and apostolic’? Is it possible to make conflict and disagreement the point of departure for creative theological reflection and sturdy ecumenical progress? What are the fruits that might be harvested from acknowledging and creatively engaging with the Christian legacy of conflict?

This presentation takes as its point of departure the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, when conflict was blazing up on different levels in theology, church, and state governance as well as society at large, at times resulting in physical aggression and religiously instigated violence and warfare. It cannot be denied that at the time conflict was playing a prominent role in the theological realm. Which are the theological lessons to be learnt today from this time of fierce conflict? As a result, the period of confessionalisation followed which led to clearly distinct ecclesial identities developing into the Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. Each of them had become a new delimited community. Although there were attempts at reconciliation at the time, the differences and contradictions prevailed and ecclesial unity in the West was lost.

If we understand ecumenism as an attempt of the different churches involved to overcome the contradiction of their opposed communal identities, this helps with assessing the role of conflict and dissent among those churches. On the one hand, this interpretation explains why only the modern ecumenical movement as a broad attempt at ‘concerted action’ yielded some success, although it never achieved the goal of “visible unity”—as the Constitution of the World Council of Churches (WCC) actually formulates the primary purpose of the WCC as an ecumenical institution. On the other hand, this interpretation clarifies why the modern ecumenical movement can function as a laboratory for devising innovative hermeneutical instruments. These instruments are designed for coping with controversy and conflict as well as for enhancing unity. Particularly the ‘differentiated’ or ‘differentiating consensus’, a hermeneutical tool developed in the International Lutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue (since 1967) and for the first time fully fleshed out in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (1999) merits closer analysis as an instrument to manage conflict and to harvest from dissent, but also as a tool to foster mutual understanding and enable encounter and cooperation between the two Christian World Communions involved.

On the basis of the insights gained, the theological role of conflict and dissent becomes more clearly perceivable and it can be asked: how can conflicts become loci theologici, hallmarks of theological differentiation and discernment; how can they, by taking the shape of various forms of prophetic resistance, function as catalysts; and how can they have formative effects teaching to take seriously the differences of the other, but also to appreciate all the more the commonalities. If these points can be clarified sufficiently, conflict can enable true encounter, while an attitude is adopted that Pope Francis once labelled “the third way” to deal with conflict (EG 227).