Church leaders from across the denominational spectrum in the United States met recently–prior to the January 18-25 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity–in what might justifiably be called an ecumenical summit meeting.

They met to look at whether the various ecumenical “instruments,” such as the National Council of Churches and the new Christian Churches Together in the USA, represent in their present configuration the most effective use of available resources for carrying forward the work of unity among Christians.

Why is it important that the organizational instruments be as effective as they can possibly be? The answer to that question is given in the topic for next October’s international Synod of Bishops in Rome: the new evangelization.

Unity among the followers of Jesus has two fundamental motivating factors. First, for the glory of God,and second, for more effective mission. Regarding the second, the heart of the Good News is that we are reconciled to God and to one another through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But when you try to bring that good news to others when you are divided amongst yourselves, the message lacks credibility.

It’s not enough that we can recite Biblical chapter and verse, or that the individual churches have great programs. If the churches remain strangers to one another, do not share resources, do not engage in mission together, then the gospel of reconciliation we bring loses credibility.

And those to whom we bring it rightfully say to us: “I hear what you’re saying—‘We’re reconciled to God and to one another!’ But I also see that you do not pray together or work together or make decisions together. What you are—divided among yourselves—speaks more loudly than what you say.”

The Church of Jesus Christ evangelizes not just by what it says and does, but by what it is. Herein lies a call to the devotees of ecumenism and evangelization to work more closely together. They tend to launch their boats into different bodies of water and to pursue their own interests. The historical task has been to dig new canals between these two bodies of water in order to enable the two groups to contact and cooperate with one another.

They have particular spheres of interest and activity: Ecumenists focus on boat, evangelizers on the net. Ecumenists look to whether the boat is seaworthy and whether it has all the tools and equipment a boat should have. Evangelizers ask: What is this boat for?

Although the preoccupations of these two groups are not synonymous, neither are they opposite. The reason that both the boat and net were made is to catch fish! Whatever tensions and polarities exist between the two spheres of interest and activity are the result of human, not divine prejudice.

Ecumenism relates to the quest for visible unity and common mission among members of different Christian traditions. It relates to believers. Evangelization relates to both believers and non-believers. It invites believers to take their faith to a deeper level, and it invites non-believers into a community of faith.

Both are minority movements among general church membership, and both are counter-cultural in that they wish to change the status quo. Evangelists seek to make the church larger and more vibrant by bringing in new members and deepening the faith of present ones, and ecumenists seek to unite those who are already in it.

If we could all understand that unity is for mission, we could meet on a deeper level. We could acknowledge and applaud one another’s gifts and efforts, and we could work more effectively together.

The simple fact is that if your boat is leaking, it prevents you from having all hands on deck involved with throwing out and bringing in the nets. And the divisions among us as Christians are leaks in our boat. Evangelists and ecumenists today are working more closely together, and there are some pleasant surprises.

Evangelizers have discovered that whole new spiritual worlds open up in ecumenical dialogue and that these spiritual worlds are inhabited by other people who love the Lord.They have discovered that a good ecumenist is constantly being evangelized by other Christians. And ecumenists are learning to measure not only by the number of churches united, but also by the number of new churches planted as a result of unity efforts.

So if unity is for mission, evangelizers do well do know what it means to be “ecumenical,” and ecumenists to know what it means to be “evangelical.”

Two flawed interpretations of the ecumenical enterprise are disturbingly widespread among Catholics today. One is “progressive,” the other “traditionalist.” Both are wrong.

The progressive version goes like this. Fifty years ago, in the time of Pope John XXIII and Vatican Council II, ecumenism was going great guns. Indeed, the speedy reunion of separated Christians was a real possibility. But soon after the council things stalled, and under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI a reaction set in. Due to foot-dragging by Rome, the ecumenical movement is now at an impasse.

The traditionalist story is hugely different. Starting with Vatican II and continuing since then, it holds, Catholic ecumenism has been a mistake. There’s been no significant progress, there’s been no reunion, and the practical result of it has been mainly to encourage the relativistic notion that one religion is as good as another. Better we admit our mistakes, cut our losses, and concentrate on encouraging people to convert.

Neither in theology nor in matters of fact is either the progressive or the traditionalist account correct. It’s the great merit of Kenneth D. Whitehead’s helpful new book, The New Ecumenism (Alba House, 2009), to show in concrete detail why that’s so.

Writing from the perspective of an eminently orthodox Catholic, Whitehead argues that the formal commitment of the Catholic Church to the ecumenical movement which began some four decades ago conforms to Christ’s will for Christian unity as well as to the Church’s own solemn teaching. Individual conversions to Catholicism are much to be desired and should be encouraged. But the “new ecumenism” of ecumenical dialogue in a search for common ground isn’t merely permissible but necessary.

Nor is it reasonable to put the blame for slow progress on the Vatican. Take the Catholic relationship with the Anglican Communion. Generally speaking, the gulf between Rome and Canterbury hasn’t been widened by the Vatican’s words and deeds but by the Anglicans’ well publicized inability to put their house in anything approximating even a semblance of order.

The Orthodox? Recall that Orthodoxy isn’t one body but a grouping of autocephalous — independent — national churches, each with its own historically-conditioned relationship to the Church of Rome. Among these bodies, the prickly nationalism of the largest, the Russian Orthodox Church, remains an especially serious huge obstacle to entente with Catholics.

To be sure, in some cases Rome hypothetically might gain an appearance of unity by abandoning one or another dogma or authoritative teaching. Progressive voices in Catholicism sometimes urge that. But this kind of political compromise would be, Whitehead notes, a dishonest way of handling substantive differences about doctrinal truth. It contains the seeds of its own collapse.

As matters stand, Rome has gone pretty far. In 1995 John Paul II reached out to the Orthodox in the encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One), inviting suggestions on how to exercise papal primacy of jurisdiction in a way they would find more congenial. If there have been significant responses to date, it’s a well-kept secret.

Yes, half a century ago there were expectations that unity would be quick and easy. “We wanted to do ourselves what only God can do,” Pope Benedict says. Now we know better. When and if unity comes, it will be in God’s good time.

Meanwhile, the Pope says, “we have to be prepared to keep on seeking, in the knowledge that the seeking itself is one way of finding….[It is] the only appropriate attitude for the person who is on a pilgrimage toward eternity.”