LEFT: On the ACU campus, Glenmary Father Frank Ruff walks and talks with Churches of Christ theologian Keith Stanglin. RIGHT: Churches of Christ leader Israel Chaffin (left) and Glenmary Brother Craig Digmann share faith.
A Meeting of Hearts and Minds It’s a Texas-sized challenge, but Glenmary and Churches of Christ members are working toward greater unity. story + photos by john feister
“I’ve been dreaming of this day for 40 years!” That’s Glenmary Father Frank Ruff, excited to be part of breaking new ground in ecumenism. This past January the Glenmary Ecumenical Commission spent three days faith-sharing and praying with a group of ministers and members from the Churches of Christ, at Abilene Christian University (ACU) in Abilene, Texas. “It was a moment of grace,” says Glenmary First Vicepresident Father Aaron Wessman, who made the long trip to north-central Texas to participate. “This kind of a breakthrough with a community like the Churches of Christ is not a small thing.” A scholar and minister from Churches of Christ echoes Father Aaron. Douglas A. Foster, who spent his career teaching Christian history at ACU, reflects, “When you’re talking about visible Christian unity, some people say, ‘Well, that will never happen.’ But it is a priority. If we take Jesus’ prayer for unity in John’s Gospel seriously, we can not do any less. These couple of days were absolutely successful.” The meeting took place in the library amid ACU’s 4,000-student campus. Father Aaron describes it, from the Catholic side, as “an informal dialogue under the umbrella of the United States bishops.” Glenmary’s 14
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ecumenical work, particularly through its Ecumenical Commission, is in the name of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. A Movement for Unity The Churches of Christ are part of a broader Protestant movement, the American Restoration Movement, which set out in the early 1800s to restore what it considered lost or neglected Christian practice and to build Christian unity. Three of its leaders, Presbyterian minister Barton W. Stone and the Presbyterian father and son Thomas and Alexander Campbell, came together in central Kentucky to practice “unity amidst diversity.” In what has become known as the Stone-Campbell movement, they sought for Christians to do the same in every community, in simple worship and service. Each congregation in Churches of Christ maintains its independence, which remains one huge visible difference from Catholicism. Perhaps the other biggest difference from Catholicism is the movement’s reliance solely on the New Testament for its practice of Christianity. Alas, this movement for Christian unity was unable to hold itself together. People of varying backgrounds couldn’t overcome differences of understanding about
