Abstract

An exposition of John 17 and Ephesians 4, the two Biblical texts that have served as the locus classicus for much recent ecumenical discussion. The book intends to reject a superficial ecumenism which remains doctrinally indifferent or subordinates doctrinal unity to evangelical effort. The author shows that the Johannine and, especially, the Pauline notions of unity presuppose a prior unity of faith with a determinate Scripturally-determined content. This unity in faith must never be sacrificed to the "quantitative, visible, inclusivist, hierarchical, institutional" unity characteristic of the solution by absorption.—E. A. R.