In thinking about interview subjects for the July issue of EcuMiniNet Online, with its "reconciliation" theme, Michael Kinnamon immediately came to mind. Dr. Kinnamon's formal involvement with the ecumenical movement began over twenty years ago, and has included serving on the staff of the World Council of Churches, as General Secretary of the Consultation on Christian Union, which recently became the Churches Uniting In Christ, and his continued involvement with the National Council of Churches.

Dr. Kinnamon, the son of a Disciples of Christ minister, grew up in southern Iowa. He studied in Israel, and earned his Master's and Doctorate degrees from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and for seventeen years, he taught courses on the ecumenical movement, the global mission of the church, and interfaith dialogue at Disciples' seminaries, and has taught and lectured in Israel, India, Australia, Zimbabwe and Taiwan. He is currently teaching at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Kinnamon's most recent book, The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices, is frequently used in seminary classes on church unity. He has a new book, The Vision of the Ecumenical Movement and How It Has Been Impoverished by Its Friends (Chalice Press), due out this summer. Dr. Kinnamon also writes a bi-monthly column for Disciples World magazine. In addition to numerous books and articles, he and his wife Katherine, an ordained Disciples pastor, co-authored Every Day We Will Bless You: A Book of Daily Prayer. He and Katherine have two daughters.

Rebecca Bowman Woods: How did you become involved with the ecumenical movement?

Dr. Kinnamon: My first formal involvement was when I left graduate school and went to work for the World Council of Churches, in 1980. Prior to that, I had lived and studied in Israel and written my dissertation on "Literature From the Holocaust," so I'd been deeply involved in Jewish Christian dialogue, which isn't the same as Christian ecumenism, but it's certainly the same spirit. In many respects, more the root of it…by the time I'd gone away to college, because of living back and forth with different parents (Kinnamon's parent's divorced when he was very young), I had lived in thirty different houses. If you asked me what the human problem is, I think it's fragmentation; and so the good news is, in Jesus Christ, God has united those things that are fragmented. I feel that very deeply in my own life. So in a sense, my ecumenical roots go all the way to that, I suspect.

RBW: So where would you say that you believe, or hope, that the whole ecumenical movement is headed? Do you think it will go beyond Christianity?

Dr. Kinnamon: These are apples and oranges. It worries me a lot that students now regard Christian unity as passé, as if they could simply move to Jewish-Christian relations or Buddhist-Christian relations without having worked through the hard work of thinking about what it means to be Christian together. I don't think of one as a step to the other. They go on simultaneously, but they are different.

Christian ecumenism is based on the scriptural understanding that we are already sisters and brothers related by blood, and so the goal of it is a visible unity, so intense, Paul says, that the eye can't say to the hand, "I have no need of you".

Interfaith relations…are based on a theological claim that we are all related to one another through common creation in the image of God. But as soon as I say that, you realize of course, that this is a Christian claim. That's not the way that Buddhists speak about it, that's not the way that Hindus speak about it…so the only way I can talk about Hindu-Christian relations is as a Christian, who begins with a different starting point. The goal of interfaith relations would be a common envisioning of the human future in order to promote peace and work cooperatively.

But Christian ecumenism does not aim (exclusively) at cooperation. We cooperate because of our unity, but if we settle for cooperation, we actually freeze the status quo in place, and are undermining the ecumenical impulse, which is to be renewed as one body. Cooperation is based on the notion that "you're okay, we're okay." Ecumenism is based on the notion that none of us is okay, apart from the other. It's not that we're learning to get along, but rather we're affirming that we need each other in order to be the church, at all. And those are very different things.

I do a lot with interfaith relations. I'm speaking at a Stand With Israel rally here in St. Louis, and I was a speaker recently at the hundredth anniversary celebration of the organized Jewish community in St. Louis. But that in no way undermines my commitment to Christian ecumenism.

It's completely baffling to me how these denominations think they're going to get into interfaith relations on their own. "Disciples (of Christ)-Jewish dialogue" is an absurdity - it's "Christian-Jewish dialogue." The very act of dialogue with other faiths ought to force us to get our act together as Christians, more fully than it is now.

RBW: The groups that you've been a part of…you all are doing the hard work - going back to points in history, 451 A.D. and the time of Martin Luther. Do you go back with new information, or is information not the most important tool? How does that work get done?

Dr. Kinnamon: Generally speaking, part of the way of overcoming the disputes is by returning to their historical sources. Contemporary Catholics and Lutherans don't repudiate what their sixteenth century ancestors said, but they go back and realize that the contemporary situations their churches face are not the same. By doing that kind of historical work, and using history in order to illuminate and not divide (and that's a commitment that we make) the historical work becomes a real key.

Scriptural work is also crucial…for example, if we've been divided over the Lord's Supper, part of it is over the meaning of the word memorial - "Do this in memory of me." What does it mean to celebrate that kind of memorial? Modern scholarship has helped us to realize that when the Bible uses that language, it doesn't mean thinking about a distant event. It means enabling the reality of that event to become newly present in our lives. It may be that we've been divided over historical interpretations of this meal, whereas if we go back and recover what Scripture had to say, it'll help us come together.

We go back historically, we go back to Scripture, and then we look at all of it also in light of contemporary circumstances. When Martin Luther was writing, he was writing in response to particular historical events. The same is true for us, and so how do we respond together today to the historical events in which we confess the faith?

We look at all these kinds of things together, and submit ourselves to a discipline of dialogue that doesn't see the other as "enemy," but sees error or mistake as the opponent, in which we're commonly engaged. It's a process that's been honed over nearly a century now.

RBW: What about coming to agreement on a translation to use? Was that difficult? Or whether to read the Bible literally, or which parts to read literally?

Dr. Kinnamon: With regard to the issue of translation, in the United States there is a group called the Consultation on Common Texts, which tries to work on common translations - things like the lectionary, and some of the modern translations of the Lord's Prayer, have come out of that work. But of course, the way in which the theologians tend to work is to go back to the original languages, so that's less of a factor.

The other issue is the more difficult one. There is a large chunk of the church that does not participate in ecumenical dialogue. So while Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Disciples, Presbyterians, and other Reformed churches, a lot of the Anabaptists and the Orthodox are coming together, many of the churches in the Baptist tradition, and what we call Evangelicals and Pentecostals have stayed clear. They usually see ecumenism as seeking unity at the expense of truth. What I'm arguing is that compromise has never been the point.

RBW: Right, it's deeper understanding

Dr. Kinnamon: But it's a deeper understanding which doesn't polarize us against them, but rather attempts to seek deeper understanding together…we come to understand more fully by sharing the gifts that we have. The Disciples (of Christ), for example, affirm the gifts of the laity, in a way that I think has been important for other churches. At the same time…the question of teaching authority in the church has been one of our (Disciples of Christ) great downfalls, we may have something to learn from Episcopalians or others about that.

Many of the evangelicals, especially the fundamentalists, don't agree. They think that you can read the Bible literally…and so they already possess the truth, and the question is whether or not we'll have the eyes to see it. If you hold that assumption, then obviously you're not going to be involved ecumenically.

RBW: Do you think that that will ever change?

Dr. Kinnamon: I think the Pentecostal churches will become more involved in ecumenism in the next generation. Many of those churches in other parts of the world are open to seeing the spirit at work in the whole community of faith, which opens them to ecumenical work. Already, there are Pentecostal leaders at Fuller Seminary and elsewhere who are very much involved in ecumenism in the United States. So I think that will happen.

I think that many of the evangelical churches will also be more involved…we see right now a move to relate the National Association of Evangelicals with the National Council of Churches more fully.

RBW: So do you think the last group will be the fundamentalists?

Dr. Kinnamon: Fundamentalist churches, especially since many of them are radically congregational, aren't likely to ever be involved. If you think that the church is only local, then of course this global fellowship won't make much sense. And if you think that you already have truth, all truth, then you're not going to need the others. So the hardest point is that being inclusive means including those who don't agree with your understanding of inclusivity. So I've got to affirm that the fundamentalists are my sisters and brothers in Christ, even if they won't talk to me…but that's part of the ecumenical discipline.

RBW: What are the unique challenges and opportunities of the ecumenical movement in the United States? It seems that there might be some unique challenges here, because of the affluence…the difference between poor and wealthy, and the media culture here.

Dr. Kinnamon: The Civil Rights movement of the Sixties did bring churches together. But that's also an example of why unity for social justice needs the unity in sacramental life and confession. Because once the moment is past, then the churches just fragment again, unless they've made fundamental commitment to one another at a deeper level.

If unity and justice don't go together, the justice coalitions will often turn against one another and fragment. But, if the unity movements aren't committed to justice, then they become irrelevant, as if they're talking to one another under a basket. The church isn't some kind of pious huddle that just talks to itself about its sacraments, but it also isn't a social justice coalition that only worries about things in the world. It is a faith community that because of our faith, knows that it is committed to the liberation of every neighbor.

The biggest challenges facing the movement in this country have to do with expanding participation of churches…evangelicals and Pentecostals need to be involved in the work of the movement. And often, ecumenism feels pretty white, when you meet at local levels, so making sure that we interpret all this work to show that overcoming racism and living together across racial and sexual barriers is also key to the movement.

Another key challenge in the next few years is going to be turning all of the theological work into actual "lived" relationships. We've got a library full of theological agreements worked out among the churches. Lutherans and Episcopalians, for example, have a full communion relationship between them. But it's not clear that it's changed the ways in which those churches live locally. If in fact you have that kind of relationship, one obvious thing is that you won't start new churches alongside one another in a city; you'll work together in order to make a common witness. So all that has to be translated into "lived community."

RW: What are some other key areas, or even ideas…for how these churches can put this into practice, and sort of bring it down to the local level.

Dr.Kinnamon: Well, let's take Churches Uniting in Christ for example. That involves nine U.S. Protestant churches, that's what we inaugurated in Memphis in January. Those nine churches have now committed themselves to share the Lord's Supper locally on a regular basis. It means that they will begin to do mission projects together on a regular basis; so that instead of figuring out what you do in mission, and then occasionally joining with some others in a food pantry, you now think together about mission in that community, among those churches. This, by the way, will take a generation to get off the ground. But these are the kinds of things we're beginning to try and help the churches envision.

It would mean that you would take the newsletters and the bulletins from the neighboring churches, highlight their prayer concerns and lift them up in prayer, by name, in your own congregation, as a way of indicating that you're not just the church of the people who choose to join your rolls. You're the church for that place…with these others. So every homeless person in your community is your concern, whether or not they happen to be a member of your church. Prayer is an important way of signifying that.

It would mean that whenever you baptize, you always have the others present…you're baptized into the one body of Christ, and we ought to begin to signify that. It would mean that whenever you have major boards or committees that are thinking about the future of the church, you'd include representatives of these other churches.

RBW: On a more personal note, now that you've back from your role with Churches Uniting In Christ, where are you going next, what are your interests?

Dr. Kinnamon: My primary understanding vocationally is as a teacher…I've been full time dean and professor…all the time that I've been back from the World Council. I think that one of the real needs…for the future of the ecumenical movement, is to nurture a new generation in this whole understanding of church. The best way to do that is within the seminary. One of the things I'm involved with now is the Chautauqua Institute. It's a residential place up in New York that has been, (for) 125 years now, bringing people together for lectures and in the arts. I'm working with them now to develop a series of seminars around the country for ecumenical and interfaith education. I'll certainly stay involved with world and national councils, and I hope to do more writing.

EcuMiniNet Online would like to thank Dr. Kinnamon for allowing us to interview him, and for his tireless work to articulate and refine the Christian ecumenical vision, lighting the way as we strive toward becoming a reconciled people.

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