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TechnoratiPattilo says there will always be conflicts since human beings are limited in their understanding of God's will, but that further drives the significance of the ecumenical movement, he stressed.
"It brings us all together to talk openly about how we see things without having to divide. We're already divided," he said, describing the ecumenical movement as an extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins. "We come together to find common ground of understanding so that we can be Christians together in helping to make the world a better place."
Although the ecumenical table has broadened considerably, the Rev. Dr. W. Douglas Mills, who serves on the ecumenical staff of the United Methodist Church, stressed the need that they "constantly have to be expanding the 'we' with whom we do this work."
"The basic purpose of the ecumenical movement today is not to create a megadenomination or a single church, but to help Christians respond to the command of Christ that we all be one in spirit and in fellowship," Pattilo explained.
"We can do that without having to compromise our beliefs because so much of what all Christian faith groups believe, they hold in common," he said, alluding to the teachings of Jesus on the poor and meeting the needs of one another. "It becomes a point of celebration that we can find this unity in Jesus Christ across all this cultural and doctrinal differences and can thus bear a clear witness that there is one Lord, one faith and one baptism."
The nearly 300 attendees had converged at Oberlin College in Ohio, where the first Faith and Order conference had opened in 1957.
Looking toward the next 50 years, the ecumenical partners were urged to spawn a new Great Awakening.
If there was a time for a new Great Awakening to happen in our nation, the time is now, said the Rev. James Forbes, who recently retired as senior minister at The Riverside Church in New York City, on Monday.
"You of the Faith and Order movement are the salt of the earth."
