BEMs betydelse för gudstjänstlivet i den världsvida kyrkan

Abstract

The text is based on a lecture given by request at a Swedish ecumenical conference to depict the significance of Faith and Order’s famous Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry 1982, BEM, for the liturgical life of the churches. It is stated that the document was elaborated during the decades of intense work on liturgical renewal in churches all over the world and in the phase in which the three thorough-going currents of 20th century church history - the Bible-, the Liturgical and the Ecumenical Movements - were brought together.

The Roman-Catholic liturgical renewal based on Vatican II became epoch-making also for many other churches. It is significant that the first two constitutions were those on the liturgy 1963 and on the church 1964 drawn up by contributors, of which some belonged to other churches. The same kind of ecumenical cooperation was practised when the theological views of the constitutions had to be applied to the revision of the liturgical books. During a couple of decades a previously unseen multilateral work was carried through concerning the renewal of the liturgical life of the churches. Straight across confessional borders worship books were shaped in which the similarities are greater than the dissimilarities.

During the same period Faith and Order’s ways of working were substantially changed. In Lund 1952 a comparative ecclesiological study was replaced by a Bible-theological investigation of «Christ and his Church» (my italics) as starting point for the evaluation of the traditions of the churches. The first result of the method was One Lord, One Baptism 1960, which also became the first step on the way to the unanimously adopted convergence document BEM 1982. In Montreal 1963 and Aarhus 1964 the study of the apostolic Tradition and the traditions of the churches, was explicitly directed towards baptism, eucharist and ministry, not as theological themes but as entities in the churches’ worship and life in full progress. Attention was to be paid to things hindering or promoting unity. In addition to the new moves came the invitation to the churches to join the process by means of elaborated responses to a preliminary report (1975) and to a continued dialogue which favoured cross-fertilization of the liturgical renewal and the BEM-study and thereby a reception through the liturgical life of the churches.

In between Faith and Order’s meetings in Santiago de Compostela 1993 and Kuala Lumpur 2004 work was directed to baptism as gift and obstacle in the process aiming at the visible unity of the church. Very little was heard about this work, and when the final report was presented it was sharply dismissed by the commission as leading to a cul-du-sac. The reasons are discussed, and it is claimed that the decisions in 2004 mean a return to those methods for the process that were launched four decades earlier.