March 1, 2010 issue
AMBS prof chronicles ecumenical discussions
Minority traditions of Reformation get a hearing
By Mary E. Klassen Associated Mennonite Biblical SeminaryELKHART, Ind. — As several Reformation traditions prepare for their 500th anniversaries, a new book records dialogue among them.
André Gingerich Stoner, director of interchurch relations for Mennonite Church USA, left, talks with Walter Sawatsky, who has edited a book of proceedings from consultations that brought together representatives of reform movements in Europe. — Photo by Mary E. Klassen/AMBS
Walter Sawatsky, professor of church history and mission at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, has edited proceedings of two ecumenical consultations in a newly released book, Prophetic and Renewal Movements: The Prague Consultations, published by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
The Prague Consultations are a series of seven consultations that have taken place since 1985. This volume includes the two most recent consultations, which met in Strasbourg in 2000 and Prague in 2003.
These consultations offered for the first time a place for voices from minority Reformation traditions to be heard within the larger context of ecumenical conversations.
Through sponsorship by the Lutheran World Federation, World Alliance of Reformed Churches and Mennonite World Conference, the consultations expanded to include participants from a broader sweep of Reformation churches.
“The conversations began with minority churches, and the integrity of the discussions gradually attracted Lutherans and other groups,” said John Rempel, associate director of the Institute of Mennonite Studies at AMBS.
Because the marginalized churches had been participants from the beginning, “they remained on equal footing in the discussions,” he said.
Sawatsky’s book will bring the proceedings, “forward to an audience that would not otherwise know about it,” Rempel said.
The consultations gave participants opportunities to consider how they have lived with their histories, Sawatsky said.
Sawatsky’s emphasis “was to notice how we talked with each other, and how ecumenical fellowship and dialogue changed us,” he said. “Some transformations happen when more of us learn to think differently.”
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