“Ecumenism in the Age of World Christianity” will be explored in a Feb. 21 talk at 7 p.m. by professor Raimundo Cesar Barreto, hosted in the spiritual center of St. Paul Parish, Princeton.

Baretto will address how the drastic demographic and cultural shifts that have taken place in the past century impact Christian identity and Christian relations today – including to what extent the ecumenical institutions of the previous era are still effective.

“More Christians [are] living in Africa, Asia and Latin America than in Europe and North America – the cradle of modern Christianity,” Baretto remarked. “Does the ecumenical movement need to be renewed? To what extent do migration and the understanding of a faith on the move impact our understanding of ecumenicity? These are some of the issues and questions I want to address.”

Barreto is assistant professor of world Christianity at Princeton Theological Seminary. An ordained Baptist minister, he holds a doctoral degree from the same institution, as well as degrees from the Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Brazil, and McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University.

The talk is free and open to all; light refreshments will be served, and a question / answer period will follow Barreto’s presentation.

“I hope this will be more of a conversation than an address,” Barreto said. “I hope those who come to this conversation will be challenged and stimulated to understand the world we live in through new lenses, gaining a fresh understanding of the beauty, but also the challenges of an irreversibly plural and diverse world – and of a plural and diverse Christianity.”

Barreto noted that since the heyday of the ecumenical movement, the world and Christianity have changed drastically.

“We are facing challenges that one could not anticipate at the inception of the modern ecumenical movement,” he continued. “I am among those who continue to believe in the relevance and value of ecumenism. In fact, I think we need to strengthen an ecumenical spirit and our ecumenical relations more than ever before.”

At the same time, Baretto cautioned, our understanding of ecumenism may need to be expanded and stretched to speak to the new types of divisiveness that seem to impact church and society today. “My hope is that we can identify some of those possibilities in our conversation,” he said.

“I grew up in what I can describe as an anti-ecumenical environment,” Baretto said. “Ecumenism was almost a bad word in the Christian circles [in which] I was formed. However, the more I was exposed to people of other Christian confessions and of other faiths, the more I realized that I needed them for the sake of my own integrity as a member of the human family and as a Christian. I learned that the relationship with those who held different views or beliefs was not a threat to my faith or Christian identity.”

Before joining the PTS faculty, he taught at the Northeastern Baptist Seminary and at Faculdade Batista Barsileira in his home country, having also served as director of the Freedom and Justice Division of the Baptist World Alliance. He remains involved in ecumenical and interfaith work in connection with numerous denominational and ecumenical ecclesiastical bodies, including the American Baptist Churches USA, the Baptist World Alliance and the National Council of Churches USA.

St. Paul Church is located at 214 Nassau Street. The spiritual center is below the church, and can be accessed via a ramp from the parking lot directly behind the church building.