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             These words of St. Paul are most appropriate for our observance of the week of prayer for Christian unity.  For they teach us what the ecumenical movement has taught us, in its gradual development since the Stockholm Conference of 1925: that Christian unity is not to be confused with uniformity and is entirely compatible with diversity.  The goal of the ecumenical movement is not primarily organizational; it is not the unity which exists between the various subsidiaries of some giant corporation.  It is a unity in the Spirit—the Spirit who is, at the very same time, the source of our diversity, which manifests in a finite way the many-splendored radiance of God’s glory.  
            Perhaps this is why ecumenism has lost much of its appeal.  The initial breakthroughs, the historic meetings between the leaders of the great confessions, the lifting of centuries-old anathemas had an eye-catching quality.  But once it became apparent that radical change in the denominational map was not on the horizon and that individual conversions have actually diminished, ecumenism was put on the back burner, to become the concern of specialists or dilettantes. 
            Christian unity, understood as growth in the one Spirit of our common calling, is too spiritual a concept to command the sustained interest of anyone except the devout Christian.  For Christian unity, so understood, is nothing more than the communal consequence of that continual conversion and renewal to which the scripture calls us every day of our lives, and there is nothing about conversion which appeals to the spirit of this world. 
            Another reason why ecumenism has lost much of its interest is because the 16th century issues which produced our present denominational structures are not the burning issues of today.  Scripture or tradition, pope or council, priest or presbyter, sacrifice or commemoration, faith or works—these alternatives over which so much ink (and blood) was shed are of mainly historical interest. 
            The old controversies has lost their actuality, indeed in some cases even their intelligibility.  Theological commissions are appointed to review them, but the experts themselves see the issues quite differently from their 16th century counterparts.  A contemporary Roman Catholic theologian maintains that there is no difference between the teaching on justification of Karl Barth and that of the Council of Trent.  The international Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue reaches a joint position on eucharist and ministry. 
            Were the schisms of the Reformation due to a colossal misunderstanding?  Hardly.  However naïve the theological controversies of that time may appear to us today, the divisions within Christianity had underlying spiritual causes.  St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, “the apostle of Vienna,” once remarked that the Reformation took place because the German people wanted to be pious. 
            But the fact that the historic divisions within Christianity were the result of human sinfulness does not mean that corporate conversion will result in a restoration of medieval Christendom.  As Aristotle has observed, “The road from Athens to Piraeus is not the same as the road from Piraeus to Athens.”  You can’t go home again, nor should we hanker to return to the past. Whatever the cause of the divisions within Christianity, God has made use of them for God’s own purposes.  The wind blows where it will, and the working of the Spirit pays no heed to denominational boundaries.  The divisions among Christians have become a channel for the varieties of spiritual gifts. 
            The welcome cessation of denominational warfare has made Christian division assume new forms.  Christians are still divided but not primarily along denominational lines or on denominational issues.  The role of the church in society, its responsibilility to the underprivileged and disenfranchized, in short, its relationship to the modern world—these are some of the issues which divide Christians as sharply today as the theological controversies of the Reformation did four centuries ago.  These divisions exist not between denominations but within denominations—Catholic is divided against Catholic, Protestant against Protestant, Anglican against Anglican. 
            Are these new divisions to splinter the Christian movement all over again, at a time when the church seems to be becoming an almost marginal presence in public life?  Here the teaching of St. Paul demands to be heard: “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.”  These new polarities need not work to the rending of Christ’s body if Christians will only not absolutize their individual viewpoints.  Jesus’ counsel of tolerance, “He who is not against you is on your side” (Luke 9:50), befits the spirit of what John Courtney Murray called the person of the extreme centre.
            To be sure, not all differences can be glossed over; there are un-Christian and anti-Christian positions against which the prophetic spirit of the church must issue an anathema as categorical as any from the past.  But not every position which differs from my own is anti-Christian, and I have no right to assume the prophetic mantle to unchurch others who also claim a share in the Spirit of God.
            “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matthew 7:1).  Is this an excuse for vacillation, or rather a warning not to be too quick to claim divine sanction for our personal convictions, however deeply held?  Paul says, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  Let us use this gift not to divide but to unite, not to alienate but to reconcile, not to win others over to us, but to win all over to Christ, in whom is neither male nor female, neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free (Galatians 3:28), but yet in whom is our unity and our peace. 

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