Learning to Deal with Disagreement on Ethical Issues

This article deals with a new study document, Churches and Moral Discernment: Facilitating Dialogue to Build Koinonia, adopted by the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches in 2021. This document addresses basic issues of moral discernment in ecumenical relations and seeks to spell out how churches can deal constructively with disagreement on ethical issues. Such disagreement can lead to tensions that threaten division within churches and can become a burden in ecumenical cooperation between churches. Underlying the specific ethical questions and the complexity of church relations is often the question of the place and self‐understanding of churches in their specific society at a specific time. Thus, it is a question about dealing with the historicity of the public witness of the churches and their reference and relationship to the world. This touches not only on fundamental questions of ethics, but also on the understanding of the church and of ecumenism.