This history celebrates the Catholic League, an ecumenical society founded in 1913 to promote the unity of Christians and to encourage the journey of all towards the visible unity of the whole Church. It was founded by Anglicans who believed passionately that the future of their Church lay in the reunion of all Christians in a common Catholic and Apostolic faith in restored full communion with the Successor of Peter in the see of Rome. Today, its members include Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Free Church Christians who work together in pursuit of the League's four objectives: - The promotion of fellowship among those who profess the Catholic faith; - The union of all Christians with the Apostolic See of Rome; - The spread of the Catholic faith; - The deepening of the spiritual life.

The truth claims of Christianity appear compromised by the division of Christ’s followers into different denominations. The Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) calls Christians to spread the Gospel, but that goal is hindered as the church remain fractured. What, then, keeps Christians separated, retreating to their corners labeled “Catholic,” “Orthodox,” “Protestant,” and the like? Building on the great ecumenical work of Christians in generations past, Elizabeth M. Smith Woodard accounts for Christian disunity in terms of ecclesiology (how each group of Christians understands the definition of what it means––or what it looks like––to be “the Church”), episcopacy (the significance of the historic succession of bishops in relation to the authority of Church leadership and oversight), and apostolicity (what it means to claim that the Church today is the same Church Christ handed on to the apostles): in brief, Who are we? Who is in charge? And are we who we say we are? Smith-Woodard argues that the controversial issues dividing Christians today––abortion, gay marriage, the role of women, Eucharistic theology––stem from these questions of authority and identity. What would it look like, Smith-Woodard asks, if Christians did not insist on making any “others” more “like us,” but instead worked toward all of “us” becoming more and more like Christ? She answers that growing in cruciformity should serve as the basis for unity Using recent unity-achieving Anglican-Lutheran discussions as a case study, she examines the crucial intersection of ecclesiology, episcopacy, and apostolicity to argue that Christians grow in Christ’s mission and receptive heart as they continue to grow in cruciformity. Christ isthe heart of true ecumenical work, and of a truly Christian life.

In The Christology of Karl Barth and Matta al-Miskin, Hani Hanna argues that two of the most renowned theologians of the twentieth century, Karl Barth and Matta al-Miskin (Matthew the Poor), redefine the reality of God and humanity christologically in similar ways. Both theologians achieve this redefinition using historical rubrics that are closer to Scripture than the traditional metaphysical categories borrowed from Greek philosophy. Rooted in their respective Reformed and Coptic Orthodox traditions, their works can be placed in a dialogue that takes into account modern concerns about history, revelation, and human agency. By providing an in-depth analysis of both men's christologies, Hanna also finds that Barth and Matta's christological view of reality has implications for interfaith and intercultural dialogues today.

What is Lutheran ecclesiology? The Lutheran view of the church has been fraught with difficulties since the Reformation. Church as Fullness in All Things reengages the topic from a confessional Lutheran perspective. Lutheran theologians and clergy who are bound to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions explore the possibilities and pitfalls of the Lutheran tradition's view of the church in the face of contemporary challenges. The contributors also take up questions about and challenges to thinking and living as the church in their tradition, while looking to other Christian voices for aid in what is finally a common Christian endeavor. The volume addresses three related types of questions faced in living and thinking as the church, with each standing as a field of tension marked by disharmonized-though perhaps not inherently opposite-poles: the individual and the communal, the personal and the institutional, and the particular and the universal. Asking whether de facto prioritizations of given poles or unexamined assumptions about their legitimacy impinge the church Lutherans seek, the volume closes with Anglican, Reformed, and Roman Catholic contributors stating what their ecclesiological traditions could learn from Lutheranism and vice-versa.