Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

A NEW  CHRISTIAN ECUMENE
Oskar Gruenwald, Ph.D., JIS Editor

    Thomas Albert Howard, director of the Jerusalem and Athens Forum, organized a dialogue between Mark A. Noll and James Turner at Gordon College on 25 September 2006, and edited and contributed to the resulting volume entitled The Future of Christian Learning: An Evangelical and Catholic Dialogue (2008). It is a remarkable little book on a crucial subject. Yet it begs the question whether there indeed can be meaningful dialogue which can transcend denominational trenches. Noll and Turner teach history at the University of Notre Dame. Previously, Noll, an evangelical, taught at Wheaton College. Notre Dame did not require Noll to become a Catholic when joining its faculty. In contrast, Wheaton fired a faculty member who converted to Catholicism, and forced a beloved English teacher to resign because he would not bare his soul to the college administration regarding his divorce. Howard is to be commended for critiquing Wheaton's decision in Books & Culture as contrary to Gospel teaching (cf. Richard John Neuhaus, First Things, 12 May 2006).

    This slight volume is remarkable for the spirit of charity between the interlocutors who are accomplished academic historians. Noll and Turner, along with Howard, recount the long and tortured history of denominational divisiveness in Western Christianity since the Reformation, while expressing the hope that evangelicals and Catholics can learn from each other. Alas, they ultimately fail to bridge the divide by focusing on the traditional differences rather than the supracultural absolutes–the ties that bind the faithful together in Christ. The second aspect, emphasized by Turner, is that both Catholic and evangelical colleges have given up "any serious attempt to demonstrate and exemplify the unity of knowledge" (91). Turner further points out that: "Christianity does not come in generic form–pace C. S. Lewis' ‘mere Christianity'" (124). Lewis scholars are likely to demur. Did not Lewis submit his manuscript to clergy of three different denominations, each agreeing that they could live with that kind of Christianity? The authors are in search of "a new intellectual tradition" which evangelicals and Catholics may share with each other and even with nonbelievers (94-95). Yet Turner concludes that: "No one today can conceive what such a tradition might look like . . ." (95).

    The Good News is: We do! The Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies: An International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Interfaith Dialogue (ISSN 0890-0132) pursues a vision of a new ecumene welcoming all those who would call themselves ‘Christian' via an educational paideia to reclaim both the academy and a secular culture for Christ, epitomizing the aspiration for Christian learning to interconnect all disciplines in dialogue, and re-connect once more knowledge, ethics and faith. Proof: 21 thematic volumes (ca. 4704 pages!) of a first-rate, refereed, Christian academic Journal. JIS thematic volumes encourage a Renaissance of Christian learning inspired by C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity and John Paul II's Fides et Ratio. Cf. O. Gruenwald, "Renewing the Liberal Arts: C. S. Lewis' Essential Christianity," JIS XIV 2002: 1-24, a thematic volume on "Re-Inventing Liberal Arts Education." Guided by the Holy Spirit, this educational ministry is building a new Christian ecumene which Sander Griffioen (Vrije University, Amsterdam) sees as a much-needed "catholicity of the body of Christ" in an era of globalization (IAPCHE Contact, Sept. 2008, Insert, p. 2).

Published in: ICSA Newsletter XXVII (Fall/Winter 2009-2010): 2. Cf. O. Gruenwald, "A Call for Christian Unity," ICSA Newsletter XXVI (Fall/Winter 2008-2009): 2.

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