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The quest for Christian unity has traditionally been initiated at the international level between official leaders of Christian denominations, with the effects of their dialogue expected to trickle down to local Christian communities. In Grassroots Ecumenism, Karen Petersen Finch upends this process, proposing an approach to Christian unity that begins in your neighborhood. Finch draws directly from her experience equipping everyday Christians to know their own Christian tradition more thoroughly and to engage thoughtfully with separated Christians down the street and around the corner.
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The truth claims of Christianity appear compromised by the division of Christ’s followers into different denominations. What keeps Christians separated, retreating to their corners labeled Catholic, Orthodox, and various types of Protestant? Elizabeth Smith Woodard accounts for Christian disunity in terms of ecclesiology, episcopacy, and apostolicity: in brief, Who are we? Who is in charge? And are we who we say we are? Woodard argues that the controversial issues dividing Christians today stem from these questions of authority and identity. What would it look like, Woodard asks, if Christians did not insist on making “others” more “like us,” but instead worked toward all of “us” becoming more and more like Christ? She answers that growing in such cruciformity should serve as the basis for unity. Using recent unity-achieving Anglican-Lutheran discussions as a case study, she examines the crucial intersection of ecclesiology, episcopacy, and apostolicity to argue that Christians’ growth in Christ’s mission necessarily entails growing in unity and cruciformity.