Living Journey

Yahoo news: ATHENS, Greece -

The Vatican and the world's largest alliance of Christian churches plan to seek a common code for religious conversions, a leader of the effort said Wednesday. The groups also will open contacts with Islam and other faiths to study ways to avoid conflicts.

Envoys from the Vatican's office on interreligious dialogue and the Geneva-based WCC — which includes more than 350 mainline Protestant, Orthodox and related churches — are scheduled to open a four-day conference Friday near Rome to sketch out the broad outlines toward an eventual"code of conduct" on Christian conversions. The document could take at least three years to research and draft.

Members of other faiths, including Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims, also plan to attend the meeting in Velletri, about 25 miles southeast of Rome.

The biggest challenges to the project will be highlighted by who will be absent: Pentecostal and evangelical-style congregations that often lead the drive for conversions around the world and represent the fastest-growing bloc in Christianity.

The WCC maintains links with some groups, including the 50 million-member Assemblies of God churches and the World Evangelical Alliance. Ucko said leaders hope to use the contacts to talk more with "the most zealous groups to try to find a common voice."

The details of the conversion code will take shape in the coming years, said Ucko, but it will explore "the dos and don'ts" of trying to spread Christianity among other faiths — including places in the Muslim world where conversion from Islam is a punishable offense.

Such question stook a global stage earlier this year with the arrest of Abdul Raman, a Christian convert from Islam who faced a possible death sentence in Afghanistan before the charges were dropped in March. Rahman ultimately was granted asylum in Italy, while the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom added Afghanistan to its "watch list."

The WCC represents more than 500 million Christians worldwide. The Roman Catholic Church, with about 1.1 billion members, is not a WCC member, but cooperates closely on many levels. @Christianitytoday.com

Ok, I find the above very interesting indeed. Firstly, it is the Vatican that is pushing for interreligious dialogue — there's that word again dialogue/conversation, it is a favourite buzz word floating around inside the emergent church. Rev. Ucko says that the biggest challenges to this open interfaith dialogue will be highlighted by those who are absent from such a meeting. Really, a challenge hey! Maybe the WCC and the Vatican is going to be putting the big squeeze on those who won't compromise the Word of God for a false unity pushed by the humanitarians and advocates of the social gospel. Of course the WCC and the Vatican are VERY interested in who is not going to bow down before a social gospel in the name of peace and tolerance, the fundamentalists will be outcasts and will not be interested in a so called code of conduct concerning Christian conversions.

But what I am more interested in, is this –' who will be there?' Will any of the leaders from the emergent church be attending. Will you hear the McLaren's and the Campolo's non offensive gospel being echoed behind the closed doors at Lariano Rome.

The first of three closed-door meetings was to run May 12-16 in Lariano, a small town south of Rome. The three-year joint project is titled "Interreligious Reflection on Conversion: From Controversy to a Shared Code of Conduct."

Question: "What leaders of the World Evangelical Alliance will be used to try and convince the zealous groups to find the common voice?" I would be very interested in who goes to this meeting. If anyone has more information, please comment and let me know!!! But why is the Vatican so interested, it isn't even a member of the WCC!!

Now since Vatican 2 the Catholic Church has changed its views on where the truth can be found. In the "Dogmatic Constitution on the Church by Lumen Gentium the chapter called "The Mystery of the Church" 1964. It states this:

This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, (13*) although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

Just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and persecution, so the Church is called to follow the same route that it might communicate the fruits of salvation to men.

Doesn't the above just sound like a social gospel to you. Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and persecution!!! Not only that, but apparently there are many elements of truth and sanctification found outside the catholic church; perhaps an interfaith social gospel is the way towards religious unity and the all 'encompassing peace on earth'. Sound familiar! I will be doing a post on the implications of the "Social Gospel" soon, but it will take me awhile to throw it all together. Just watch this space! Social Gospel post coming soon.

Here is just an excerpt from the WCC website and its interfaith page:

During the last few decades, questions about religious and cultural pluralism have attracted renewed interest in the churches. Everywhere there is a fresh sense of urgency to build creative relationships between peoples of differing faiths. As interest in dialogue has grown, so has its actual practice, enabling various religious communities to understand one another better and to work more closely together. Here are but a few examples:

People engaged in dialogue have felt their own faith challenged and deepened by the new dimensions of religious life which they have observed, and many find in interreligious encounter a new impetus for doing theology and reviving spirituality. Communities in dialogue function as the leaven in the larger community, facilitating the creation of a society transcending religious barriers.

We stand at the historic moment when the Christian theological tradition must take full account of the experiences of those who have been living for centuries in religiously plural societies, as well as of the convictions of those who are newly stimulated by the broadening religious plurality of their surroundings. Our experience in dialogue suggests strongly that many "classical" Christian theological presuppositions and convictions need to be informed and challenged afresh by the realities of our times.

Here believers attempt to meet each other, as it were, in the "cave of the heart". They expose themselves to each other's spiritual and worship life. Often such dialogues take the form of participating in the prayer or mediation practices of others.

I can hear the secret message of McLaren loud and clear can't you??? Dialogues take the form of participating in the prayer or meditation practices of others!!! …..WOW!!! I just had to repeat that because that statement is exactly what we are hearing from the leaders of the emergent church, is it not? I will just leave you with one scripture today, it is very poignant for the church body today.

2Co 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what fellowship does light have with darkness? ,

Related Posts found in Emerging Church Category

Related Posts see also:

Let's not hide the Light under a bushel of entertainment

Loving them straight to Hell

The secret teachings of Brian McLaren

Centering Christian Chakras-just you wait and see

Emergence of Contemplative Breathe Prayers