is this what they're working forward...
ECUMENISM
Ecumenical Movement, movement for worldwide cooperation and unity among Christian churches. The term ecumenical is derived from the Greek oikoumenē (“inhabited”); thus, ecumenical councils of the church, the first of which was held at Nicaea in 325 AD, were so designated because representatives attended from churches throughout the known world. In the 19th century, the term ecumenical came to denote to the Roman Catholic Church a concern for Christian unity and for a renewal of the church. To Protestants who have pioneered in and advanced the modern ecumenical movement since the early 20th century, the term has applied not only to Christian unity but, more broadly, to the worldwide mission of Christianity.
The World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh, marked the beginning of modern ecumenism. From it flowed three streams of ecumenical endeavor: evangelistic, service, and doctrinal. Today, these three aspects are furthered through the World Council of Churches, constituted in 1948; in the early 1980s it included more than 295 churches in more than 90 countries.
The impulse to unity was acted on almost solely by Protestants until 1920, when the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople issued an encyclical summoning all Christians to reunion. Eastern Orthodox churches have been members of the World Council since it was constituted. The Roman Catholic Church, however, remained uncompromising in its rejection of the movement. From the Roman Catholic viewpoint, church unity could mean nothing less than the return of schismatic “sects” to the “one true church.” An encyclical issued in 1928 by Pope Pius XI had reemphasized this position, and as recently as 1954, Roman Catholics were forbidden to attend the second assembly of the World Council of Churches.
Also through his influence, when Vatican II opened in Saint Peter's Basilica in 1962, Protestant and Orthodox observers were accorded places of honor and included in all working sessions. The 2500 Roman Catholic bishops who attended the four council sessions (1962-65) dealt with Christian unity. Their decree on ecumenism, promulgated in 1964, spoke not of “schismatic” but of “separated brethren,” and it deplored sins against unity committed over the years by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike.
Pope Paul VI made known his intention to continue ecumenical advances, describing unity as “the object of permanent interest, systematic study, and constant charity.” At the close of Vatican II, a Joint Working Group was established between the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. Numerous official dialogues were started in many countries between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Significantly, the Joint Working Group declared in 1967 that not two but only one ecumenical movement exists. Furthermore, at the fourth assembly of the World Council, in 1968, a Jesuit theologian spoke of Roman Catholics as partners with other Christians in the quest for the unity “that is Christ's will for His Church,” and broached the possibility of Roman Catholic membership in the World Council. That had not occurred by the end of the 1980s, but the Roman Catholic Church continued to have a good working relationship with the World Council, regularly sending observers to its sessions.
The ecumenical movement has been a major force for bringing together, at least toward better understanding and sometimes even toward reunion, Christian denominations that had long been separated. At the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church took important steps toward reconciliation both with the East and with Protestantism. That same council likewise expressed, for the first time in an official forum, a positive appreciation of the genuine spiritual power present in the WORLD RELIGIONS. A special case is the relation between Christianity and its parent, Judaism; after many centuries of hostility and even persecution, the two faiths have moved toward a closer degree of mutual understanding than at any time since the 1st century.
Second Vatican Council, the 21st ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, which became the symbol of the church's openness to the modern world. The council was announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, and held 178 meetings in the autumn of each of four successive years. The first gathering was on October 11, 1962, and the last on December 8, 1965. Preparations for the council began in May 1959, when the world's Roman Catholic bishops, theological faculties, and universities were asked to make recommendations for the agenda. They prepared 67 documents called schemata, a number reduced to 17 by a special commission convoked between the council's 1962 and 1963 sessions. Voting members of the council were Roman Catholic bishops and heads of male religious orders, but, in a radical departure from past practice, Orthodox and Protestant churches were invited to send official delegate-observers. The agenda was extensive, and topics discussed included modern communications media, relations between Christians and Jews, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, the role of laity in the church, liturgical worship, contacts with other Christians and with NON-CHRISTIANS, both theists and atheists, and the role and education of priests and bishops. (Isn’t this what Christ meant when He was telling the parable in Matthew 13:31-33. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed planted… it grew into a big tree until the birds of the air perch in its branches. – Until the demons infiltrated the church. The yeast that a woman mixed into the flour. – compromise… yeast, other doctrines and beliefs embraced).
The council issued 16 documents, notably the constitutions on divine revelation (Dei Verbum, November 18, 1965) and on the church ( Lumen Gentium, November 11, 1964) and the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965). The council explained the Roman Catholic understanding of how the Bible, tradition, and church authority relate to one another in the exposition of divine revelation. Other documents sought common ground in dealings with Orthodox and Protestant Christians and with those who are NOT CHRISTIANS.
In a rare departure from its deliberate policy of avoiding condemnations, the council deplored “all hatreds, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews.” American delegates played a significant role in shaping the council's declaration upholding the universal right of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, a document in which the thought of the American theologian John Courtney Murray figured prominently.
Pope John had launched the Second Vatican Council on a positive note, setting as its purposes the updating and renewal (aggiornamento) of the Roman Catholic church and achievement of Christian and HUMAN UNITY.Pope Paul VI, who continued the council after John's death in 1963, endorsed those purposes and added that of dialogue with the modern world.
The reactions of the churches to their changed situation in the modern period have also included an unprecedented increase in theological interest. Such Protestant theologians as Jonathan Edwards and Friedrich Schleiermacher and such Roman Catholic thinkers as Blaise Pascal and John Henry Newman took up the reorientation of the traditional apologias for the faith, drawing upon religious experience as a validation of the reality of the divine. (Wow! So now they become the authority in validating and knowing God rather than God making Himself known through the scriptures). This research indicated to many that no particular form of doctrine or church structure could claim to be absolute and final, but it also provided other theologians with new resources for “reinterpreting” the Christian message. Literary investigation of the biblical books, although regarded with suspicion by many conservatives, led to new insights into how the Bible had been composed and assembled. And the study of the liturgy, combined with recognition that ancient forms did not always make sense to the modern era, stimulated the reform of worship.(Obvious corruption and discrediting the scripture!)
Another important development was the ecumenical movement, which brought about the mergers of many Protestant denominations throughout the world and led to the formation in 1948 of the World Council of Churches. Protestants entered into dialogues with one another and with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as with NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS.In one move toward greater unity, four Protestant denominations in the United States agreed in 1997 to recognize one another’s sacrament of communion and to exchange clergy under certain circumstances.(Isn’t this a clear apostasy?)
Marcel Lefebvre - a retired French archbishop who rejected the doctrinal and disciplinary reforms instituted by Vatican Council II. Who, in 1970 founded an international group known as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. He declared that the council's reforms “spring from heresy and end in heresy.” Pope Paul VI suspended him from the exercise of his functions as priest and bishop in 1976, but he continued his activities, including ordination of priests to serve traditionalist churches. Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988.
John XXIII (pope) (1881-1963), pope (1958-1963) - inaugurated a new era in the history of the Roman Catholic Church through his receptivity to church reform.
John's openness to other faithswas shown by his establishment (1960) of the secretariat for promoting Christian unity, by his contacts with Orthodox Church and Protestant leaders and with the World Council of Churches, and by his promotion of Christian-Jewish dialogue. John's major accomplishment was calling the Second Vatican Council. His purpose was to bring about the renewal of Roman Catholic religious life through the updating (aggiornamento) of church teaching (UPDATING? God’s words and Christ’s teachings are unchangeable), discipline, and organization and to encourage the unification of Christians and of all humanity(Mat 13:38. Christ Himself mentioned that not all are God’s children. We Christians are not of this world and are called to be set apart from the world…. Christ Himself forbids us to have any dealings with the world as to any sense of being one or united with them.) His rare interventions in the council (which was not completed before his death) supported the movement for change favored by the majority of delegates (so now this is clear religion. Indeed, man making his own doctrines). His other achievements include seven encyclical letters, among them Mater et Magistra (1961), which emphasizes individual dignity(uplifting oneself rather than dying to one’s self and clothing into Christ’s righteousness) as the basis of social institutions, and Pacem in Terris (1963), which urges international cooperation for peace and justice and committing the church to a concern for all human problems.
Here’s a trustworthy prophecy which for sure is now coming to its fulfillment in our time. A trustworthy prophecy and warning. (Dan 8:25) “And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify [himself] in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.”
we can't be dogmatic in making judgment, and let alone the scripture speaks of whos who. but this is given that everyone may be aware of what's going on.
God bless you.
ECUMENISM
Ecumenical Movement, movement for worldwide cooperation and unity among Christian churches. The term ecumenical is derived from the Greek oikoumenē (“inhabited”); thus, ecumenical councils of the church, the first of which was held at Nicaea in 325 AD, were so designated because representatives attended from churches throughout the known world. In the 19th century, the term ecumenical came to denote to the Roman Catholic Church a concern for Christian unity and for a renewal of the church. To Protestants who have pioneered in and advanced the modern ecumenical movement since the early 20th century, the term has applied not only to Christian unity but, more broadly, to the worldwide mission of Christianity.
The World Missionary Conference of 1910, held in Edinburgh, marked the beginning of modern ecumenism. From it flowed three streams of ecumenical endeavor: evangelistic, service, and doctrinal. Today, these three aspects are furthered through the World Council of Churches, constituted in 1948; in the early 1980s it included more than 295 churches in more than 90 countries.
The impulse to unity was acted on almost solely by Protestants until 1920, when the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople issued an encyclical summoning all Christians to reunion. Eastern Orthodox churches have been members of the World Council since it was constituted. The Roman Catholic Church, however, remained uncompromising in its rejection of the movement. From the Roman Catholic viewpoint, church unity could mean nothing less than the return of schismatic “sects” to the “one true church.” An encyclical issued in 1928 by Pope Pius XI had reemphasized this position, and as recently as 1954, Roman Catholics were forbidden to attend the second assembly of the World Council of Churches.
Also through his influence, when Vatican II opened in Saint Peter's Basilica in 1962, Protestant and Orthodox observers were accorded places of honor and included in all working sessions. The 2500 Roman Catholic bishops who attended the four council sessions (1962-65) dealt with Christian unity. Their decree on ecumenism, promulgated in 1964, spoke not of “schismatic” but of “separated brethren,” and it deplored sins against unity committed over the years by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike.
Pope Paul VI made known his intention to continue ecumenical advances, describing unity as “the object of permanent interest, systematic study, and constant charity.” At the close of Vatican II, a Joint Working Group was established between the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. Numerous official dialogues were started in many countries between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Significantly, the Joint Working Group declared in 1967 that not two but only one ecumenical movement exists. Furthermore, at the fourth assembly of the World Council, in 1968, a Jesuit theologian spoke of Roman Catholics as partners with other Christians in the quest for the unity “that is Christ's will for His Church,” and broached the possibility of Roman Catholic membership in the World Council. That had not occurred by the end of the 1980s, but the Roman Catholic Church continued to have a good working relationship with the World Council, regularly sending observers to its sessions.
The ecumenical movement has been a major force for bringing together, at least toward better understanding and sometimes even toward reunion, Christian denominations that had long been separated. At the Second Vatican Council, the Roman Catholic Church took important steps toward reconciliation both with the East and with Protestantism. That same council likewise expressed, for the first time in an official forum, a positive appreciation of the genuine spiritual power present in the WORLD RELIGIONS. A special case is the relation between Christianity and its parent, Judaism; after many centuries of hostility and even persecution, the two faiths have moved toward a closer degree of mutual understanding than at any time since the 1st century.
Second Vatican Council, the 21st ecumenical council recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, which became the symbol of the church's openness to the modern world. The council was announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, and held 178 meetings in the autumn of each of four successive years. The first gathering was on October 11, 1962, and the last on December 8, 1965. Preparations for the council began in May 1959, when the world's Roman Catholic bishops, theological faculties, and universities were asked to make recommendations for the agenda. They prepared 67 documents called schemata, a number reduced to 17 by a special commission convoked between the council's 1962 and 1963 sessions. Voting members of the council were Roman Catholic bishops and heads of male religious orders, but, in a radical departure from past practice, Orthodox and Protestant churches were invited to send official delegate-observers. The agenda was extensive, and topics discussed included modern communications media, relations between Christians and Jews, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, the role of laity in the church, liturgical worship, contacts with other Christians and with NON-CHRISTIANS, both theists and atheists, and the role and education of priests and bishops. (Isn’t this what Christ meant when He was telling the parable in Matthew 13:31-33. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed planted… it grew into a big tree until the birds of the air perch in its branches. – Until the demons infiltrated the church. The yeast that a woman mixed into the flour. – compromise… yeast, other doctrines and beliefs embraced).
The council issued 16 documents, notably the constitutions on divine revelation (Dei Verbum, November 18, 1965) and on the church ( Lumen Gentium, November 11, 1964) and the pastoral constitution on the church in the modern world (Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965). The council explained the Roman Catholic understanding of how the Bible, tradition, and church authority relate to one another in the exposition of divine revelation. Other documents sought common ground in dealings with Orthodox and Protestant Christians and with those who are NOT CHRISTIANS.
In a rare departure from its deliberate policy of avoiding condemnations, the council deplored “all hatreds, persecutions, and displays of anti-Semitism leveled at any time or from any source against the Jews.” American delegates played a significant role in shaping the council's declaration upholding the universal right of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, a document in which the thought of the American theologian John Courtney Murray figured prominently.
Pope John had launched the Second Vatican Council on a positive note, setting as its purposes the updating and renewal (aggiornamento) of the Roman Catholic church and achievement of Christian and HUMAN UNITY.Pope Paul VI, who continued the council after John's death in 1963, endorsed those purposes and added that of dialogue with the modern world.
The reactions of the churches to their changed situation in the modern period have also included an unprecedented increase in theological interest. Such Protestant theologians as Jonathan Edwards and Friedrich Schleiermacher and such Roman Catholic thinkers as Blaise Pascal and John Henry Newman took up the reorientation of the traditional apologias for the faith, drawing upon religious experience as a validation of the reality of the divine. (Wow! So now they become the authority in validating and knowing God rather than God making Himself known through the scriptures). This research indicated to many that no particular form of doctrine or church structure could claim to be absolute and final, but it also provided other theologians with new resources for “reinterpreting” the Christian message. Literary investigation of the biblical books, although regarded with suspicion by many conservatives, led to new insights into how the Bible had been composed and assembled. And the study of the liturgy, combined with recognition that ancient forms did not always make sense to the modern era, stimulated the reform of worship.(Obvious corruption and discrediting the scripture!)
Another important development was the ecumenical movement, which brought about the mergers of many Protestant denominations throughout the world and led to the formation in 1948 of the World Council of Churches. Protestants entered into dialogues with one another and with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as with NON-CHRISTIAN FAITHS.In one move toward greater unity, four Protestant denominations in the United States agreed in 1997 to recognize one another’s sacrament of communion and to exchange clergy under certain circumstances.(Isn’t this a clear apostasy?)
Marcel Lefebvre - a retired French archbishop who rejected the doctrinal and disciplinary reforms instituted by Vatican Council II. Who, in 1970 founded an international group known as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X. He declared that the council's reforms “spring from heresy and end in heresy.” Pope Paul VI suspended him from the exercise of his functions as priest and bishop in 1976, but he continued his activities, including ordination of priests to serve traditionalist churches. Lefebvre was excommunicated in 1988.
John XXIII (pope) (1881-1963), pope (1958-1963) - inaugurated a new era in the history of the Roman Catholic Church through his receptivity to church reform.
John's openness to other faithswas shown by his establishment (1960) of the secretariat for promoting Christian unity, by his contacts with Orthodox Church and Protestant leaders and with the World Council of Churches, and by his promotion of Christian-Jewish dialogue. John's major accomplishment was calling the Second Vatican Council. His purpose was to bring about the renewal of Roman Catholic religious life through the updating (aggiornamento) of church teaching (UPDATING? God’s words and Christ’s teachings are unchangeable), discipline, and organization and to encourage the unification of Christians and of all humanity(Mat 13:38. Christ Himself mentioned that not all are God’s children. We Christians are not of this world and are called to be set apart from the world…. Christ Himself forbids us to have any dealings with the world as to any sense of being one or united with them.) His rare interventions in the council (which was not completed before his death) supported the movement for change favored by the majority of delegates (so now this is clear religion. Indeed, man making his own doctrines). His other achievements include seven encyclical letters, among them Mater et Magistra (1961), which emphasizes individual dignity(uplifting oneself rather than dying to one’s self and clothing into Christ’s righteousness) as the basis of social institutions, and Pacem in Terris (1963), which urges international cooperation for peace and justice and committing the church to a concern for all human problems.
Here’s a trustworthy prophecy which for sure is now coming to its fulfillment in our time. A trustworthy prophecy and warning. (Dan 8:25) “And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify [himself] in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.”
we can't be dogmatic in making judgment, and let alone the scripture speaks of whos who. but this is given that everyone may be aware of what's going on.
God bless you.
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