The year 2010 has a number of significant markers in the life of the institutional ecumenical movement (as opposed to the kind of “mere” ecumenism or “ecumenism in the trenches” experienced by Mere Comments readers).

Last month saw the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference. It also saw the formation of a new global ecumenical body, the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC). (More on the WCRC in a moment.) And tomorrow the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) begins its 11th General Assembly in Stuttgart. Finally, the Third Lausanne Congress (now in association with the World Evangelical Alliance) will be held in Cape Town in October.

Between the Edinburgh and Lausanne events, which function as kind of “evangelical,” “evangelistic,” or “mission-oriented” bookends, the two mainline ecumenical bodies, the WCRC and the LWF, are having their own councils. Once you take a closer look at the goings on at these kinds of gatherings, its easy to see why there is often sicj amto[atju tp them.

Mainline denominations and ecumenical groups like the WCRC, LWF, and WCC have a kind of symbiotic (or codependent) relationship, where the denominational officials can often push through agenda items at the ecumenical level, and then return to their denominational assemblies and use the rhetorical strength of “ecumenical agreement” to hammer the agenda at home.

In the ecumenical movement, we see the problems of mainline denominations writ large. So, for instance, there was a great deal of controversy at the WCRC Uniting General Synod about “gender justice” issues, including quotas for gender representation on committees as well as discussion about whether denominations that don’t ordain women would be allowed to be members (their consciences were left intact from the meddling of ecumenical bureaucrats, at least for now).

This kind of discussion to my mind simply represents one of a number of varied expressions of “liberation theology” as embraced by the broader ecumenical movement. Characteristic of this, shall we call it, “neo-liberation theology” is the addition of liberation from all kinds of “oppressions,” such as gender, sexuality, ecological, ethnic, and so on, to the standard neo-Marxist narrative of economic oppression. The WCRC event here in Grand Rapids included a Native American Pow Wow and a plenary address by a Native American theologian calling for opposition to “cowboy” theology and promoting reparations, simultaneously privileging praxis over doctrine.

One way of understanding what’s happened is that in the aftermath of the Cold War, ecumenical ideologues have seized upon “globalization” as the tool with which continue their “prophetic” opposition to the American empire. Following the Roman Catholic Church’s definitive engagement of liberation theology in the 1970s and 1980s, the heterodox teachings of these neo-Marxists has found a haven in mainline denominations and ecumenical groups.

And beyond the rooting out of heterodoxy, there’s a good deal for the ecumenical movement’s social witness to learn from the example of the Roman Catholic Church. But more on that another time.

This article first appeared in the Mere Comments of the July-August issue of Touchstone Magazine online version and is used with permission. Touchstone is a Christian journal, conservative in doctrine and eclectic in content, with editors and readers from each of the three great divisions of Christendom — Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox. This article was written by Jordan J. Ballor. Ballor is a Ph.D. student in moral theology at Calvin Theological Seminary. Jordan serves as associate editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality and is a contributor to the Acton Institute PowerBlog.