'Unity is strength, but diversity is wealth'

Some years ago, while working in Brussels, I wrote an article (posted here) looking at the parallels between the European Union and the ecumenical movement. The starting point was the widespread feeling in the early 1990s of stagnation in the European Union, with the Single Market not being able to meet the challenges posed by the disintegration of communism and the end of the Cold War. There were parallels, I argued, with the challenges facing the ecumenical movement, which in its institutional form at least, was, like the EU a product of the post-Second World War era. Again like the EU, the ecumenical movement was predicated on the promotion of unity as a central task, while also having the pragmatic function of representing their still separate members. The article explored the extent to which the "paradigm shift" outlined by ecumenical theologian Konrad Raiser in his book Ecumenism in Transition might be applied also to the European Union based on the "house rules" of self-limitation and the renunciation of violence; dialogue and striving for truth; sharing in solidarity; ecumenical learning; and ecumenical hospitality.

I was reminded of all this when reading a recent blog post by Dan Smith on the "long term view" for the new EU high representative for foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton.

Unity in diversity or ... diversity in unity?

One of the phrases most of associated with the ecumenical movement in the past fifty years has been the slogan, "Unity in Diversity", the idea that church unity does not mean uniformity. It has also been suggested that this slogan has influenced the European Union in its quest - it is used as the title for a document setting out different persectives and common goals in the enlerged EU. But one of the issues I have been wrestling with recently is whether it is better now to speak of "Diveristy in Unity" - in other words: rather than taking the idea of unity as normative and explaining how this does not mean uniformity, one starts with the diversity that exists in the worldwide Christian community and asks how this diversity may be held in unity.