Ecumenical Orthodoxy
Touchstone’s 25 Years of Common Witness
by James M. Kushiner, executive editor
Touchstone turns 25 years old this fall. When it began in 1986 as a newsletter, no one planned to publish it for a quarter-century or longer. But the newsletter met a need, and it grew quickly to a quarterly, then to a regular magazine.
Touchstone followed a time of religious and cultural upheaval. By 1986, we were 20 years out from the end of the Second Vatican Council, and from the beginning of the Charismatic movement and the Jesus Movement; a dozen or so years earlier, the Vietnam War had ended, the so-called Sixties (1963–1973) had also come to an end, and many of the Baby Boomers had reached adulthood.
Catholics had endured twenty years of post-Vatican II syndrome; mainline Protestants were unsure how far down the slippery slope of theological and moral heterodoxy their churches might slide; Evangelicals were getting politically engaged, finding the Canterbury trail, or discovering seeker-sensitivity; and the Eastern Orthodox had barely emerged from their ethnic isolation and begun to speak English in their services.
A New Unity
Yet an unexpected new unity was emerging among faithful Christians, a unity that extended across established denominational and confessional lines. Vatican II had encouraged Catholics in a new ecumenical engagement, and other Christians had responded. The Charismatic movement had brought together Catholic, Protestant, and even a few Orthodox Christians looking for a deeper spiritual experience. The Jesus Movement brought together many young-adult Christians outside of their denominational homes, and increasing numbers of Evangelical Christians were identifying with various para-church organizations.
These and other movements—pro-life activism after Roe v. Wade, and the rise of the homeschooling movement in the wake of the increasing secularism of public education, to name two—brought divided Christians together in shared challenges. This came to be known, in the phrase of the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, as the “new ecumenism,” and also as the “ecumenism of the trenches.” It was a movement distinct from, and in crucial ways more effective than, official ecumenical efforts.
In the 1980s, the popular conferences sponsored by Allies for Faith and Renewal, for example, presented Evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox trios, such as Chuck Colson, James Hitchcock, and Thomas Hopko, to speak on issues of common concern. In 1994, the first “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” statement was published, though not without controversy.
More recently, in November 2009, Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox came together to sign the Manhattan Declaration, a statement of conscience on pro-life concerns, marriage, and religious liberty. Senior editor Robert P. George was one of the formulators of this statement (see his editorial on page 4), and all the Touchstone senior editors have signed it.
Facing the Issues
James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.
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more on Orthodox from the online archives
more from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Maternal Body: A Theology of Incarnation from the Christian East by Carrie Frederick Frost
Fertile Ground: A Pilgrimage Through Pregnancy by Laura S. Jansson by Agnes R. Howard
31.6—November/December 2018
on the Church's Response to the Anti-marriage Tide by Diane Woerner
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