HOW WORLD CHRISTIANITY SAVED THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT

Abstract

The following article examines how the expansion of world Christianity in the course of the twentieth century contributed to change and renew the ecumenical movement. This article argues that an expanded notion of the oikoumene and the ecumenical which takes into account social, economic, and cultural differences is crucial for the future of the ecumenical movement. The article highlights the challenges faced by the modern ecumenical movement and examines its historical roots in eurocentric conceptions of mission and unity, which informed, among others, the World Missionary Congress in Edinburgh (1910), and its subsequent ramifications, including the 1916 Panama Congress on Christian Work in Latin America. Bringing attention to a decolonial shift in world Christianity that challenges the hegemonic approach to ecumenism, the article diachronically points concrete cases such as the Tambaram World Missionary Conference, Vatican II, the formation of EATWOT, the Global Christian Forum (GCF), and Pope Francis’ declaration “Querida Amazonia” to illustrate an alternative ecumenical model impacted by what was once seen as the margins. By looking at these examples, the article attempts to show that the turn to the indigenous in world Christianity offers another possible ecumenical path, carved through an intercultural hermeneutics that decenters colonial Christendom, relocates the Christian loci of enunciation, and engages dialectically with multiple cultures, traditions, and religions as they manifest their own pretension to universal truth.