Ecumenism from the Bottom Up

Dr Ian Watson, County Ecumenical Officer, asks what might Pentecostal experience teach us about where Christian unity begins?

5-Minute Read

Sometimes an article makes you stop, not because you agree with everything in it, but because it asks a question you had not quite asked or understood in that way before.

The Pentecostal tradition is one I am interested in and want to understand better, although it is not a tradition in which I have any particular expertise. That is one reason I was intrigued by an article I recently came across by the Pentecostal theologian Shane Clifton, entitled ‘Ecumenism from the Bottom Up’. Clifton explores an important strand in the history of Pentecostalism: the conviction that Christian unity is first the work of the Holy Spirit, experienced in relationships between Christians, rather than something created by institutions.

One of the early Pentecostal voices he discusses is Sarah Jane Lancaster, a pioneer of Pentecostalism in Australia. Writing in 1913, Lancaster argued that Christians who differed in doctrine could nevertheless meet one another in love and enjoy what she called the “liberty of the Spirit”. She imagined a bottom up grassroots and relational unity in which the Body of Christ was understood primarily as an organism rather than an organisation.¹

I do not know about you, but I find something attractive about that. Much of the ecumenism I encounter as a County Ecumenical Officer begins in exactly this ordinary way. Christians meet one another. They pray together, sometimes study Scripture as one, undertake a community project, join a walk or pilgrimage, share worship where they can, or simply become friends. Nobody has negotiated an ecclesial agreement or contract beforehand – organic relationship comes first.

Clifton points to the Charismatic Renewal as a striking example of this way of understanding unity. According to him, Christians from very different traditions encountered one another through a shared experience of worship and the Holy Spirit while often remaining firmly within their own churches. One Pentecostal pastor quoted by Clifton put it memorably: “We do not have to create this unity. The Spirit has already done this!”²

There is something important here. Christian unity is not simply a project for us to organise: it begins with what God has already done in Christ and continues through the work of the Holy Spirit. But Clifton’s account also left me with a question. If Christians discover that unity through prayer, worship and friendship, what happens next? Is recognising our spiritual unity enough, or should what we discover in one another lead us towards something more visible and lasting? And, if it should, what part might our churches and ecumenical structures play in that?

We need to be careful, however, about turning that question into a simple contrast between a Pentecostal preference for spiritual unity and other Churches’ concern for visible or organised unity. Pentecostalism is remarkably diverse, and there is no single Pentecostal ecclesiology which can simply be summarised in a few sentences. Clifton himself stresses this diversity.

In Britain today, the Pentecostal and Charismatic constituency includes major denominations, networks and independent congregations, as well as Charismatic Christians within historic Churches. Churches Together in England describes it as both extensive and diverse.³ Nor do I think that it would be accurate to suggest that Pentecostals in England simply reject organised ecumenism. Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches have a substantial presence within Churches Together in England, including their own Forum and one of CTE’s six presidencies, and they participate in formal conversations with other Christian traditions.⁴ In March 2026, for example, the first official Catholic–Pentecostal dialogue in England began, bringing together Pentecostal and Catholic theologians, Church leaders and ecumenical officers.⁵ 

That tension between a unity already given in the Spirit and the structures through which Christians express it is not just historical. At an Anglican–Pentecostal consultation organised by the Church of England and CTE in 2015, some Pentecostal participants questioned whether the diversity created by the Holy Spirit needed to be so carefully “ordered”. Faith, they suggested, is fundamentally what unites Christians; church order is secondary. But the same consultation also recorded agreement that Christian unity matters, that differences need to be faced honestly, and that theological conversation should be rooted in prayer, fellowship, relationships and common action.⁶

That seems to me an important challenge to all of us involved in ecumenism. Bottom up relationships matter enormously, but so do the structures that help sustain them. Churches Together groups, county bodies, national ecumenical instruments, dialogues and agreements matter. They may not be the most important things but without some structure, relationships can disappear when particular people move on. Even Clifton acknowledges that early Pentecostal suspicion of organisation eventually encountered this problem. Communities need organisation, and doctrine and tradition help give them identity and continuity. The British Pentecostal leader Donald Gee eventually concluded that there was nothing about church government itself that necessarily “quenched the Spirit”.⁷

Perhaps, then, “bottom up” and “top down” should not be competitors. The international Catholic–Pentecostal dialogue offers an interesting clue. Its discussions about koinonia ( communion or fellowship) found Pentecostals and Catholics agreeing that the Holy Spirit is the source of Christian communion, although they approached that communion with different emphases. Significantly, the dialogue concluded that those emphases need not be mutually exclusive but could be complementary. It also agreed that the Church has both visible and invisible dimensions and that this distinction should never become an excuse for continuing Christian separation.⁸ 

That leaves me wondering whether one task of formal ecumenism is to pay closer attention to what is already happening informally. The Holy Spirit does not wait for our committees before bringing Christians together. Sometimes encounter comes first. We meet another Christian, listen to their story, pray with them and discover a shared discipleship of Christ which is deeper than we had realised.

Saying that, however, neither should we stop there. Friendship does not make our real differences disappear. Questions of doctrine, ministry, sacraments and the nature of the Church remain. Genuine ecumenism does not require us to pretend otherwise. The question is what we do with the relationship once it has begun. Well, I would say we need a bit of top down to support bottom up.

Nonetheless, ecumenism from the bottom up has something particularly important to teach us. Our structures do not have to manufacture Christian unity. They can recognise it, nurture it, test it, connect it and help give it a more lasting expression The Spirit brings Christians into encounter. What follows depends, at least in part, upon whether we are prepared to receive and have the mechanisms to sustain what the Spirit is giving us.

References

1. Shane Clifton, ‘Ecumenism from the Bottom Up: A Pentecostal Perspective’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 47(4), 2012, pp. 544–560, especially p. 547.
2. Clifton, ‘Ecumenism from the Bottom Up’, p. 552.
3. Hugh Osgood, ‘The Pentecostal and Charismatic Constituency within the British Church’, Churches Together in England. ⁠Read the CTE briefing
4. Churches Together in England, ‘Pentecostal Charismatic Forum’. ⁠Pentecostal Charismatic Forum
5. Churches Together in England, ‘A historic first: Catholic Pentecostal dialogue begins in England’, 2 June 2026. ⁠Read the CTE report
6. Churches Together in England and Church of England, ‘The Church: Common Vision, Common Mission? Report on Anglican-Pentecostal Consultation’, 2015. ⁠Read the consultation report
7. Clifton, ‘Ecumenism from the Bottom Up’, pp. 548–549.
8. Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and Classical Pentecostal Churches and Leaders, Perspectives on Koinonia, Report from the Third Quinquennium of the International Catholic–Pentecostal Dialogue (1985–1989), especially §§29–38. ⁠Read Perspectives on Koinonia

Concept and article by Dr Ian Watson, County Ecumenical Officer for Norfolk and Waveney.

Image created with the help of Open AI.

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