@article{Tau_2017, title={Toward an Ecosystem of Unity: Ecumenism and Ecclesiology in the Postmodern Era, A United Methodist Appraisal}, volume={9}, url={https://methodistreview.org/index.php/mr/article/view/199}, abstractNote={This essay explores the current conditions for church unity derived from the political and organizational culture of modernity and questions whether a new definition and form of unity is needed as modernity itself undergoes a major transformation.  It asks whether the centralizing legal and bureaucratic structures that now animate conversations around church unity ought to be retought in light of postmodern trends.  It proposes a more multi-textured form of unity as <em>koinonia </em>or <em>communion </em>made up of an overlapping network of relationships characterized by the mutual recognition of members, ministries, and sacraments.  Drawing upon the metaphor of a web or ecosystem this essay affirms the ecumenical shift to pursuing bilateral full communion agreements over large multilateral attempts at merger, and proposes that intra-Methodist unity be conceptualized as a <em>communion</em> of distinct <em>connectional</em> structures.}, journal={Methodist Review}, author={Tau, Kyle R}, year={2017}, month={Dec.}, pages={1–17} }