Christian Church(Disciples of Christ)
Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)
Contact: news@cm.disciples.org
96b-68
August 2, 1996
CRAIGVILLE, Mass. -- No church can be truly "prophetic" unless it is also truly "catholic," theologians said at the annual Craigville Colloquy on Cape Cod last month. And when prophecy and tradition appear to be in conflict, the church should be "a place for civil dialogue and responsible discourse," one of the speakers said. Meeting July 15 to 19 at the Craigville Conference Center, this year's event drew representatives from the UCC, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and Unitarian traditions. Traditionally, the Craigville Colloquy is concerned with the relationship between faith and practice. This year's event was no exception. Its theme, "How can we be catholic and prophetic?" centered on the tensions between prophecy and tradition. "The church will not have the power to be prophetic unless it recovers its faith, its tradition," said the Rev. Paul A. Crow Jr. of Indianapolis, keynote speaker and president of the Council on Christian Unity of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Crow said the prophetic church is also catholic because the church "is not a voluntary association but the creation of God for the redemption of the world. "It must be visibly one because its Lord and Savior is one," he said. Many of the pastors and theologians meeting in Craigville were activists in labor struggles, solidarity movements and campaigns against racism. No one questioned the proposition that "to be truly catholic, the church must be prophetic." But many said the reverse was also true: to be prophetic, the church must be catholic. "Catholic" is a Greek word meaning "universal," but not in its modern sense of "worldwide," Crow said. "The church is catholic not only because it exists in every place or embraces all cultures and nationalities, but because the atonement of Christ is universal. The atoning love of God expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross is for everyone," he said. "The church lives in solidarity with human suffering," Crow said. "Its unity in Christ is a sign for the unity of the human family, and its energy for prophetic witness comes from Jesus Christ." To be catholic, many theologians said, a prophetic community has to be accountable to the presence of the Holy Spirit in scripture and tradition. One of the small working groups put it this way: "The catholic church is universal in space and time. It therefore exists in continuity with the communion of saints in all times and places. It claims as its own the whole tradition, and listens for the word of God in the entire canon of scripture." The church has to live in "the past, the present and the future," the small group said in its report. "There can be no prophecy apart from tradition. But tradition is not static power. Then it would be a merely human tradition, not the living work of the Holy Spirit. The tradition is a living tradition because it points to the living God whose reign even now is coming into history."