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in France and Germany—one Catholic and two Protestant. They claim that those dialogue papers drafted by joint official study groups between Catholics and Lutherans and accepted by the Churches, provide a sufficient basis for mutual eucharistic hospitality. It is, so they say, the Churches’ responsibility to finally recognise what they themselves accepted and to alter their practices respectively.⁵ As is widely known, this has still yet to take place.

      As matters stand, there seems to be good reason for the committed theologians’ disenchantment: It is the bishops and not the theologians who are to be blamed for the lack of progress in ecumenics. Even a theologian who would not voice any hasty critique or debonair programme joins in this criticism. In the foreword to Volume III of his Systematische Theologie, Wolfhart Pannenberg writes: “Hardly any other factor obscures the truth of the gospel of Jesus so much as the fact of church division and accompanying phenomena, especially the combination in leading ministers of a pursuit of power with a limited outlook. Indeed it is usually a limitation of individual judgment that has plunged well-meant advocacy of the truth of the gospel into the ambivalence of human efforts at an entrenchment of dominion.”⁶ Pannenberg’s view of the question at stake here is worthy of consideration, for he has promoted the dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans for decades. Moreover, in the volume just cited, he submits a number of proposals which are unprecedented from the Lutheran side. So one might well presume that Pannenberg precisely knew what he did when ascribing imperiousness and narrowness of mind to leading Church officials.

      If this was all there is to say, the theologians’ task concerning ecumenics would come to an immediate end and things could be handed over to those who are likely to empower Church officials with courage for makeovers and changes. This, however, is far too simple a picture. Despite the given justification of the criticism just described, academic theologians cannot abstain from continuing this work. Once again, one or two examples should be enough to shed light on the matter. In today’s German discussions, for example, there is talk of a major paradigm shift in ecumenics. The decades after World War II, so the argument goes, were dominated largely by the paradigm of ecumenics aiming at consensus. This aim is often embodied in the production of programmatic doctrinal statements. For example, consider the triadic formula of the World Council of Church’s plenary meeting in New Delhi in 1961, when the Orthodox Churches joined the WCC. They helped to promote the idea that longanimous dialogue processes should be able to find a consensus in key issues of the Christian faith between denominations which have been estranged from one another for a long time. Dialogue processes such as the revision of doctrinal reprobations of the Reformation period by a joint study group of Protestant and Catholic theologians in Germany provided good reason to pursue to this agenda. Probably the best-known example in recent years is the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” between the Roman Catholic and the Lutheran Church which was signed in 1999. This document states a consensus concerning basic truths in the doctrine of justification. It is precisely this declaration which marks the cornerstone of the paradigm shift. Protestants widely criticised this declaration for giving in to the Catholic side of issues that are central to their own viewpoints. This critique was not voiced by Church officials but rather by academic theologians who tried to hinder the document’s official acceptance. However, this attempt failed and the document was signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Secretariat for Christian Union on Reformation Day in 1999. Despite this failure, these critics even felt entitled to maintain their position just a few months after the ceremonious signing of this first document when the papal Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document named Dominus Iesus (August 6, 2000). This latter document restricted the use of the word “Church” to the Roman Church alone. Therefore, although it claims to have established a dialogue par cum pari (among equals), the non-Catholic participants were denied the status of being a proper Church. In this way, the latter statement brought the efforts of the former to a halt. The critics argued that a new paradigm in ecumenics must be critical of any method of consensus that reaches too far in order to achieve goal. Instead it must clearly state that the status of the Protestant Churches as the Church cannot depend on Rome’s perception of them. This is how the catch-phrase “distinctive ecumenics” (“Ökumene der Profile”) came into being. The slogan for this endeavour could perhaps be “denominational identity first and ecumenical dialogue second.” The participants in the dialogue must be clear about what their identity is before the dialogue can begin. This is because a proper dialogue requires such self-understanding in order for the participants to know how far they can go in the pursuit of consensus. The President of the leading committee of the Protestant Church in Germany at that time, Wolfgang Huber, published a volume on the main ideas of distinctive ecumenics. Nobody, he says, wants to go back to the isolation of denominations from one another; but at the same time, differences must not be left unclear. Courage to confess one’s creed and respect for different traditions is required. Expressing one’s own identity is preferable to remaining undefined.⁷ Ulrich Körtner from Vienna University concurs with Huber’s basic position noting that ecumenics have seen a shift from a model of consensus to a model of difference. In discussing the hermeneutics of diversity, he concludes that ecumenical hermeneutics should not foster any programme of unity. They should rather discover and comprehend the complex family resemblances which unite the denominations despite their ongoing differences.⁸

      Accordingly, the current state of ecumenics is as follows: On the one hand, there is discord between those suspecting Church officials of being both negligent and hesitant in their efforts. On the other hand, there are those who claim that the model of consensus has reached a barrier and needs to be replaced by another model.

       Identity and Dialogue

      The present book is written from a perspective that has largely profited from the model of consensus in ecumenism and must therefore at least in part be read as a critique of the distinctive ecumenics model. The main reason for this is that identity and dialogue are closely connected with one another. Therefore the basic assumption that the clarification of one’s denominational identity must precede dialogue is overly simplistic. In fact, the clarification of one’s denominational identity is an indeterminate and multifaceted process. Those who favour a hermeneutical model of difference and profile rightly note one of these key features, namely, that a denomination’s identity is grounded in the story of that denomination itself. The first point, here termed factor (a), is that identity is reflected in what individuals and groups say about themselves. No dialogue process which discounts this basic fact will yield satisfactory results. Yet, there are at least three more factors to be considered with regard to a denomination’s identity. Factor (b) is the phenomenon of mirroring. As with the previous factor, this one is likewise known from the philosophy and sociology of identity. That is, a person or group needs to become aware of the way others perceive it. Their own version of their story (i.e., their “inner perspective”) must converge with the story of their perception by others (i.e., their “outer perspective”). Whether in good fellowship or in conflict, this process is more than an exchange of information; it will alter and enhance the identities of those involved. In light of this mutual shaping of identities, the idea of Christian denominations entering a dialogue with a fully-formed self-perception of their own identity becomes somewhat unsophisticated. This is also true with respect to factor (c), namely, that identity is something that is in progress.

      Factors (a)–(c) are not a speciality of theology or denominational studies. They may be found in modern classics concerning the topic, such as George Herbert Mead’s main work.⁹ Additionally, most of those favouring distinctive ecumenics will agree to these basic insights. It is only on closer inspection that differences become visible. In supporting his notion of a hermeneutic of difference Ulrich Körtner writes, “Ecumenical hermeneutics is not an instrument of implementation let alone an enforcement of a programme of unity however shaped. It is rather a skill helping us to discover and to better understand the complex and dynamic family resemblances that connect the denominations—their differences notwithstanding. To discover and to understand this is an exercise of interpretation, an open process of semiosis.”¹⁰

      This quotation clearly indicates that ecumenical understanding is a process and might lead to new results. It is therefore more than merely the comparison of denominations. Yet there are two factors in this definition-like description which

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