30 Receptive Ecumenism—Learning by Engagement

Abstract Receptive Ecumenism opens the Roman Catholic Church to what may be learned through encounter with other Christian traditions, which denotes a readiness to place that church amongst the churches in a fashion parallel to the Second Vatican Council's renewal of Catholicism's engagement with history. It also engages with the ecclesiological and theological questions which arise for and from the church as it confronts secular counterparts and postmodern critique. This chapter argues that we must explore what this might mean, and what the fuller implications of such encounter might be, in the hope of making Receptive Ecumenism not only more effective for the Roman Catholic Church, but also beneficial for all the churches.