Lutherans have also approved a tentative agreement with the Episcopal Church, subject to the latter's approval this summer, and are in talks with the United Methodist Church and others. In remote areas where there aren't enough Protestants to support two churches, denominations can even cooperate to organize a single church. Such news energized participants at the workshop, which began Monday. Those attending are primarily people whose full-time job is to work on diplomatic efforts to bring churches closer together. Individual churches need to learn to work with their Christian neighbors, he said.
Ecumenism stands or falls on what happens locally.
The Rev. Ron Ketteler, the ecumenical officer for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington, added that churches need to work on unity for the sake of the Christian message. Nancy Jo Kemper, executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, cautioned that Christians in past centuries were willing to die for their beliefs. In fact, many Christian churches are leery of ecumenical efforts that they fear are diluting the essential truths of the faith. Yet Carpe noted that even branches of Christianity that wouldn't send many representatives to a workshop such as this have their own ways of coming together. The National Association of Evangelicals crosses denominational lines, while Pentecostal denominations have worked to heal their historic racial divisions.