Okumenische Sozialethik

The title of Part I of Robra's study names the overall subject: "Ecumenical Social Ethics Amidst Paradigm Shifts." In this case, "ecumenical" means the World Council of Churches' journey of the last three decades, and the paradign shift is from a Christocentric universalism centred in the human world as the moral universe to a life-centred ethic of the whole community of life as grounded in trinitarian theology. Robra carefully sifts WCC social thought since the 1960s to show this shift of basic frameworks and the tensions that are still with us. He emphasizes especially the differences between the "pragmatic realism" of some streams of WCC social ethics and the "liberation ecumenics" of others. And while it is true -- and important -- that the focus and issues of both streams are justice, peace and sustainability, they interact and clash in complex ways. The intersection of economy and ecology is the most crucial meeting place for the interplay, as addressed simultaneously by emancipatory movements of the poor and movements concerned about the spreading environmental and socio-political degradation. To its great credit, the WCC has held the eco-justice and social justice movements and agenda together, even if uneasily; and Robra's analysis is a clear documentation of how this common terrain has been the shared stage on which different paradigms of the ecumenical method and substance have been working themselves out.

Robra uses two schema as his own theoretical filters for sifting the history which he handles so deftly. He draws heavily on Konrad Raiser's Ecumenism in Transition and Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. Both serve Robra and the materials well but there is no doubt whatsoever that Raiser's is the crucial interpretative lens. Habermas is merely convenient; Raiser is necessary. In fact, the book would be essentially the same -- and thus as substantial -- without Habermas, but emasculated without Raiser's shifting paradigms or something very close to them. This means that any major interpretation of recent ecumenical social thought that would differ sharply from Robra must also take sharp issue with Raiser's account.

One can only be grateful for Robra's achievement, even where the reader may differ on some points of interpretation. The time since theGeneva conference on Church and Society (1966) has been tumultous, deeply conflicted, creative and important. We have needed a comprehensive retrospective treatment of this period that maps these years and gives perspective to them. This the book does admirably. And some segments, such as the analysis of the "Justice, Peace, Integrity of Creation" process and the Seoul convocation (1990) are, in my judgment, handled with a competence not found elsewhere in the literature.

IN a word, it would be a contribution to the ongoing ecumenical debate itself if this book found its way into other of the official WCC languages and were thereby more accessible to the churches at large. The writing is clear, well-organized and jargon-free. It would serve a larger audience well on issues still as much ahead of us as behind us, both within the ecumenical movement and beyond it.

COPYRIGHT 1995 World Council of Churches
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning