Dialogue From Sectarian To Church Unity - Hole Gard Thought

As a promoter and designer of the Second Vatican Council, Congar hasmade a great contribution, especially through the implementation ofdialogue between Christians, ecumenical movement to realize churchreform.Congar grow up in a Catholic family, but has many protestantcompanions. The hard experience in the dark time of First and Second WorldWar help him to see the value of peace, and he is longing for peach inthe depth of his heart. All these nurtured his ecumenical vision and urgedhim to know more about different sects and try to understand andcommunicate with them. This is the beginning of his church reform.He cherishes the value of different churches and regards them asdifferent traditions, which are the various expression of the commonTradition. In this way, he breaks the walls of different churches. Thenhe look back to the catholic church and try to rediscover the irreplaceableposition of laity, who stands in front of the church and is the connectionof the church and the world. He also try to awake the conscious of thelaity, helps them to realize their active function as a living subjectand the belief successor. Standing at eschatological perspective, heunions different churches by the same calling—‘serve the world’, buthand the authority to the Holy Spirit.By studying Congar’s theological thoughts, this article try topresent catholic church reform at the turning point of second Vaticancouncil and try to depicts the picture of how the20c theologians respondto the present contextualization demand.This article consisted of four parts. The first part as the backgroundinformation, presents the serious situation before second VanticanCouncil, and at the same time gives a brief introduction about Congar’spersonal experience and his conscious of ecumenism. Based on one ofCongar’s important work Dialogue between Christian, the second part tryto analyze the development and change of Congar’s thought andsystematically divided them into early and late periods. Following thesecond part, the third part pay attention to the church reform—the necessary process and the destination of ecumenical movement. By more andmore realizing the laity’s position as a belief subject and who has hisown self-consciousness, stand on this point, Congar makes effort tobalance the hierarchy leadership and communion. According to Congar’ssystematic theology thinking, from a historical and eschatologicalperspective, the last part point out the authoritative position of HolySpirit.