THE P
RTAL Prayer for Christian Unity
Some thoughts by Joanna Bogle
January 2018 Page 4
Auntie
Joanna
Does Christian ecumenism – in the sense that we knew it in the 1970s and 80s – have a future ? I remember attending , along with fellow-Catholics from our parish , services in the local Methodist and Anglican churches , during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in the middle and late 70s . I enjoyed it : the splendid singing of Charles Wesley ’ s fine hymns , the opportunity to writes look inside a church I had passed hundreds of times but never visited , and the slightly smug feeling that we were all Doing Something Worthwhile without being quite sure what it was .
Certainly , there was something worthwhile happening : goodwill shared , old prejudices gently dismantled , and some useful local projects established , such as a Walk of Witness on Good Friday . In due course as a local borough councillor I came to know the real spirit of service that animated so many of the good things that happened in our area – and now realise that much of that had been nurtured in people ’ s lives through formation in some Christian youth group or Sunday school or similar . There ’ s a great heritage in all of that , and the loss of much of that sub-culture across Britain is to be mourned .
Well of course official attempts at Christian Unity foundered on a number of blocks – the most obvious being the CofE ’ s decision to ordain women priests – and now , alas , to follow that up with blessing same-sex unions and so on . Formal ecumenical discussions of the sort that began with the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission ( ARCIC ) are essentially over .
But there remain a number of possibilities for useful action where Christians can work together on a basis of shared faith in Christ – and one of these is Christian Projects , of which I am currently chairman . Founded back in the 1950s with the rather daunting ( and perhaps pretentious ?) title of Order of Christian Unity , it came into prominence in the 1970s . It brought together members of mainstream Christian denominations to work on some issues of common concern , one of which was religious education in schools . The OCU ran a number of conferences on this subject , and out of these came an annual Project – the Schools Bible Project – for secondary schools . This began with a pilot venture in 1989 and so in 2014 marked its Silver Jubilee . It is still going strong . Its success lies in its simplicity : a brochure goes to every secondary school in Britain inviting pupils to study
some specific events in the life of Christ and to write about one of them as if they had actually been present . It is a way of encountering the fact of Jesus Christ , and of pondering who he was : through the Wedding at Cana , the Feeding of the 5,000 , the Healing of a Blind Man , the Crucifixion , the Resurrection …
Leaflets are arriving at schools even as you read this , and the essays from the pupils will in due course be gathered together and judged by the team at Christian Projects , and prizes awarded . You can find out more by contacting the website www . christianprojectsocu . org and of course we encourage you to get your local secondary school ( s ) involved . The main winners come to London each Autumn to receive their prizes from our Trustee , Baroness Cox , at the House of Lords . It is always a memorable and happy day , made possible by the work put into the whole venture by the volunteers who help to make it happen – from the team of judges to the people who pack and wrap the prizes .
Regular readers of The Portal will also already know of the Lord ’ s Prayer project , which is partly sponsored by Christian Projects , and was initiated by the LOGS group based at Precious Blood Church at The Borough , London Bridge .
So goodwill and co-operation between Christians can still make good things happen , and long may this continue . For the rest – we must leave that to the dear Lord . Truth cannot be compromised , and real issues have real consequences . Where we can work together for the common good , something can be achieved . Better to light a candle than moan about the dark - and there is a darkness in the loss of a sense of Christian heritage in modern Britain . And a sense of light and hope when young people gather to celebrate taking part in a nationwide Bible project .