Ecumenism and Church
The modern use of “ecumenism” pertains to a narrow problem in a wide swath of differing Christians. And within that context it’s regarded ambiguously, either with hope or suspicion. Between these poles sits a taught unspoken proposition that the Church is divided. Since Christians know that the Church can’t be truly divided, the proposition finds no voice. Instead ecumenism proposes to solve dividedness. While it may have some impact on unity as a qualitative experience, ecumenism has offered little with regard to the universality of the unified Church. The very notion of dividedness is ambiguous; just consider the grammar. “Dividedness” as a noun seems concrete, but its verb root (to divide) already has a standard noun form as “division,” which is the concrete result of dividing a whole. “Dividedness,” on the other hand, begins with something that has already been divided, abstracts the quality of that division, and then treats this quality as the issue of concern