Dr. Robeck also serves as a representative of Fuller to international church dialogues and forums. After receiving an invitation from Cardinal Edward Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on behalf of Pope John Paul II, Robeck attended the ecumenical Jubilee Celebration at the Vatican last January.

The bronze doors of Rome's four basilicas are opened once every 50 years. During a special ecumenical ceremony on January 18, the bronze doors of St. Paul’s “Outside the Wall” were opened. They symbolized Jesus as the Way, the Truth, and the Life—the Door through which all must enter for salvation. Christian leaders of various world communions were invited to participate in the event.

“The ceremony and worship service at St. Paul’s Outside the Wall were very moving experiences,” says Robeck. Before the doors were opened, the international church leaders knelt and prayed together, then proceeded through the doors into the basilica. The ecumenical service included Scripture reading, prayer, and readings from Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Fr. Georges Florovsky. This was followed by an audience with Pope John Paul II.

“Those who participated in the celebration acknowledged that while we, as Catholics, Orthodox, evangelicals and other Protestants, may not be in full communion with one another, we desire to be on the way to having greater relationships with one another,” explains Robeck. “By coming together at this event, we were saying that we would like to enter the new millennium with a renewed commitment to work with one another,” he adds.

Robeck had just returned from another historic meeting that took place last December, when members of the Secretaries of Christian World Communions had audiences with the Greek, Armenian, and Latin Patriarchs, as well as the bishops of the Anglican and Lutheran churches in Jerusalem. Since Christians (most of them Palestinians) constitute only two-and-one-half percent of the population, they try to maintain relations with both Muslims and Jews. But they often find themselves squeezed between members of these two communities.

On December 4, all of the recognized heads of churches in the region had gathered for a worship service on Bethlehem Square. “The level of tension was inescapable,” notes Robeck, with Chairman Yasser Arafat seated in the center of the church leaders. The square was surrounded by bodyguards with pistols drawn. Machine guns were set up on rooftops, and snipers were situated on minarets with rifles.

“It is difficult to concentrate on worship under such circumstances,” observes Robeck, “and during the homily by the Latin Patriarch, the local mosque began its call to evening prayer—drowning out his words. He finally sat down, while the crowd of several thousand Christians waited patiently for the call to end.” In a war-weary country such as Israel, Robeck wonders, how are Christians to live out their faith? “I saw the desperate need for God's reconciling power,” he says.

Reflecting on his recent trips to Jerusalem and Rome, Robeck says he has asked himself how he can best represent Fuller to this world constituency. “Sometimes, this involves simply going and being a silent presence,” he says. “Sometimes it involves getting in and helping to build bridges—helping different, disparate groups learn how to get along with one another, or helping them to bridge a lack of understanding that may be based on a 500-year-old history. On other occasions, it calls for loving confrontation.”

“At Fuller, we see this as directly tied to the seminary’s ‘Mission Beyond the Mission’ Statement,” says Robeck, of the 1983 statement emphasizing the seminary's commitment to evangelism, church renewal, the moral well-being of society, peace and justice, and upholding God's Word. “Fuller has always believed in making a positive contribution to the churches worldwide,” continues Robeck. “We expanded that commitment in the ‘80s and ‘90s to include not simply the evangelical churches and Protestantism, but also Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

"I see my task as drawing attention to the ‘one holy catholic and apostolic church,’ as we say in the Nicene Creed, as being a symbol which manifests before the world the reconciling power of God in Jesus Christ,” Robeck notes. “Yet to the extent that we are divided and can’t get along with one another, and fight with each other, we undercut the very gospel message of reconciliation that we claim to preach.”

“My job at the seminary,” explains Robeck, “is to help students understand the value of witnessing publicly that we Christians are all, in fact, one in the eyes of God and in the work of Jesus Christ. And the reconciliation that we claim on an individual level, between God and ourselves, is also something that God expects us to live out in our daily relationships with one another. We are called upon to love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.”

Robeck adds, “I think our local pastors have the responsibility of connecting with all the churches in their area. We don’t have to agree with everything that other churches teach; we don’t have to like everything that other churches teach. But I think we must go out of our way to be the brother or sister that we are called to be. Unless we are able to live this unity with other Christians, we run the risk of undercutting the gospel,” warns Robeck. “If we can’t be reconciled with our brothers and sisters, then what reconciling power is there to the gospel?”

“Our world is becoming more secularized,” continues Robeck. “We’re moving into postmodernity where there is a call for greater pluralism—an ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’ thinking. Yet we, as Christians, have the unique revelation of Jesus Christ. We believe that he is the one through whom salvation is given. I’m not going to compromise on that. But I can learn how to relate to that larger world. I also believe that the larger world is going to be increasingly antagonistic toward Christians. This means that we have to decide who our friends and who our enemies are. Our friends are those who claim the same name that we claim, the name of Jesus Christ. We need to develop those relationships, because we are going to need those relationships.”

Recently, Robeck preached in chapel at Fuller on Luke 9:49-50, where the disciples saw a man casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Yet when James and John condemned the man, saying, “Wait a minute! You can’t do that! You’re not part of our group!” Robeck reminded the worshipers that Jesus answered them, “He who is not against you is for you.” Robeck concluded, “I think these words of Jesus are as critical for us today as they were then.”

What should be our call today? “It seems to me, if Jesus prayed ‘that we all may be one . . . so that the world may believe,’ God will honor that prayer,” responds Robeck. “I am convinced that my job, as a follower of Jesus Christ, is to look at ways in which I can participate, in the Spirit of God, to move us one step closer to a visible manifestation of that oneness in Christ.”

Robeck believes that Fuller has an important role to play in this. “For 50 years, Fuller has been a place which has lived out a form of realized ecumenism,” he says. “Fuller is a microcosm of the church in the world. For me to walk into a church history class with students from 25 to 30 different denominations and from many different countries of the world—to relate to these students with love as a Christian and as a professor who cares about where they are going and about the churches they’re going to serve—that, to me, is the highest calling I can have.”

“Fuller has been on the forefront of this reality among evangelical institutions,” concludes Robeck. “I don’t know of another seminary that has taken the kinds of risks that Fuller has taken ecumenically to make this possible. We want to respond to the prayer that Jesus prayed in John 17. We want to live out the unity we have in Christ Jesus in a visible way, ‘so that the world may believe.’”