DESCRIPTION: This course is designed to provide an overview of the major bilateral dialogues between denominations. Among the dialogues included will be those involving Roman Catholic, Orthodox (both Eastern and Oriental), Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Anabaptist, and Pentecostal denominations. Students will be introduced to some of the more important doctrinal and practical discussions on which agreement has been reached. Emphasis will be placed upon the stated goals of each dialogue, the various methodologies employed, the way each communion views/describes itself, the subjects chosen for study, the rationale for undertaking the study, the effectiveness of the dialogue in bringing about change, and the current level of reception that each study has achieved.

SIGNIFICANCE FOR LIFE AND MINISTRY: Students should be better equipped to engage their own traditions theologically and to enter into contemporary ecumenical discussions within their own church traditions.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) This course will help students to understand the larger ecumenical landscape. (2) It should enable students to understand their own confessional traditions within the broader framework of the ecumenical movement. (3) Students will learn various approaches to bilateral conversations. (4) This course will help them understand how the doctrines and the practices of the church as understood within their own tradition are being studied and refined in collaboration with the perspectives of other traditions. (5) Students will increase their critical skills in understanding and communicating their ecumenical findings through their reading and writing and their study of primary source materials.

COURSE FORMAT: The class will meet for lecture/discussion format once weekly. Students are expected to make one 30-minute class presentation.

REQUIRED READING:

Cassidy, Edward Idris. Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue. New York: Paulist, 2005, 293 pp. ISBN: 0809143380. $18.95.

Gros, Jeffrey, Harding Meyer, and William G. Rusch, eds. Growth in Agreement II: Reports and Agreed Statements of Ecumenical Conversations on a World Level, 1982-1998. Geneva: WCC/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2000 (OP; Reserve). Selections from 940 pp. ISBN: 0802849342.

Gros, Jeffrey, Thomas F. Best, and Lorelei F. Fuchs, eds. Growth in Agreement III: International Dialogue Texts and Agreed Statements, 1998-2005. Geneva: WCC/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Selections from 615 pp. ISBN: 9780802862297. $65.00.

Kasper, Walter. Harvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue. New York: Continuum, 2009, 207 pp. ISBN: 9781441162724. $14.95.

Meyer, Harding. That All May Be One: Perceptions and Models of Ecumenicity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999. (OP; Reserve) 156 pp. ISBN: 9780802843487 or 0802843484.

O'Gara, Margaret. The Ecumenical Gift Exchange. Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 1998. (OP; Reserve) 180 pp. ISBN: 0814658938.

Select documents placed on reserve (about 200 pp.)