RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

Christian Unity, Prophetic
Witness, and the
Unity of Humanity
Kristine A. Culp
Dr. Kristine a. Culp is the Dean of the Disciples Divinity
House of the University of Chicago.
Let me begin with words of gratitude to Joe and
Nancy Stalcup, to Robert Welsh—and also to
April Lewton. At Robert’s invitation, April gathered
seven Disciples Divinity House students to discuss
Christian unity and specifically, to reflect on “the
challenge of maintaining unity and the church’s
prophetic witness in the world” or, as the topic is
phrased elsewhere, “understanding the connection
between the unity of the church and the call for
prophetic witness in our society and world.” That
discussion provided the starting point for this
paper. 1
For several of my conversation partners, the first
and overwhelming response was suspicion: Who was
appealing to unity and why? When church statements
appeal to unity, they asked, what conflicts are
being suppressed? Perhaps the appearance of
language about unity provides a sort of inverse index
of dissent and division: an indication of suppressed
positions? One interlocutor, who studies religion
in colonial and postcolonial Africa, noted how
integral assumptions of unity are to nation-states.
How often is unity an attempt to consolidate the
authority of churches by eliding diverse identities?
These questions came from persons who are already
cultivating intellectual, pastoral, and interpersonal
arts of ecumenical, interreligious, and intercultural
engagement. Let’s follow their impulse and agree
that a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” to use Paul
Ricoeur’s term, can be a good starting point. It is
crucial to ask how the language of unity functions—
what it allows us to imagine, to do, and to trust, and
what it hides, suppresses, or denies.
I’m going to follow some suspicions about appeals
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to the unity of the church. Those suspicions arise in
relation to basic human need and to transformation
in history—the notions I am going to use here more
than “prophetic witness” per se. (The language of
prophetic witness can suggest a “stance” rather than
concrete action to meet basic human needs and to
enact political and economic changes that ensure
those needs are met fairly for all.) Eventually, I will
consider how Christian unity, especially as expressed
in right participation and right testimony,
serves the unity of humanity and witnesses to the
grace and glory of the one God. Thus, I’m going to
argue for distinguishing between the unity of the
church and Christian unity, then I’m going to
suggest that Christian unity must be interpreted
and pursued in the context of the unity of humanity.
For several of my conversation partners, the
first and overwhelming response was suspicion:
Who was appealing to unity and why?
I’m going to do this in relation to key figures in the
history of Christian thought: Augustine, who
presented a more structural view of unity, but yet
emphasized the transforming work of God in all of
human history; Luther, who rejected a structural
view of unity but possibly at the expense of transformation
in history; and John Calvin, who stressed
the importance of visible ministry and transformation—and
whose thought informs the Disciples,
at least indirectly. 2
Arguably, the unity of the church was not a pressing
practical matter for the earliest Christians; what
pressed upon them were concerns about their
susceptibility to persecution, false teaching, and
alien powers, and about their status in the wider