Title: Lutheran Ecumenism at Center of Workshop on Christian Unity
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

May 15, 2001

LUTHERAN ECUMENISM AT CENTER OF WORKSHOP ON CHRISTIAN UNITY
01-118-FI

     SAN DIEGO (ELCA) -- Fifty of about 300 participants at the
National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) here April 30-May 3 were
members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).  A list of
ecumenical dialogues and agreements put the ELCA at the center of many
of the workshop's seminars, plenary and luncheon speeches, and
ecumenical worship services.
     "Lutherans enjoy a particular position of leadership in the
national workshop together especially with their Episcopal and Roman
Catholic partners," said the Rev. Dennis A. Andersen, Bethany Lutheran
Church, Seattle, president of the Lutheran Ecumenical Representatives
Network (LERN).
     The National Workshop on Christian Unity is an annual meeting
comprised of several ecumenical networks meeting separately and
together.  The workshop involves LERN, Episcopal Diocesan Ecumenical
Officers (EDEO), the National Association of (Roman and Eastern
Catholic) Diocesan Ecumenical Officers (NADEO) and Ecumenical
Colleagues, which includes the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.,
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church.
     "There are very few ecumenical partners here with whom we are not
in some kind of ecumenical bilateral dialogue, full-communion
relationship or with whom we will not soon be in ecumenical dialogue,"
said Andersen, so we stand in a remarkable position."
     In 1991 the ELCA adopted "A Declaration of Ecumenical Commitment,"
which states that the church's ecumenical goal is a relationship of
"full communion" with all those churches that confess the Triune God --
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Full communion commits the churches to
share locally and internationally in their mission and to develop
procedures whereby clergy in one church body may serve as pastors in
congregations of the other church body.
     The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, Moravian
Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in
America and United Church of Christ.  It took an active role in the
Lutheran-Catholic "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification"
signed by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Vatican in 1999.
     The ELCA is involved in direct talks with the African Methodist
Episcopal Church, Mennonite Church, Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic
Church and United Methodist Church.  It maintains a Consultative Panel
on Lutheran-Jewish Relations.
     At its churchwide assembly this summer in Indianapolis, the ELCA
will vote on becoming a "partner in mission and dialogue" with Churches
Uniting in Christ (CUIC).  After 30 years of dialogue, the nine churches
of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) -- African Methodist
Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ), Christian Methodist Episcopal Church,
Episcopal Church, International Council of Community Churches,
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ and United
Methodist Church -- will form CUIC in 2002.
     The ELCA is a member of the National Council of Churches of Christ
in the U.S.A. (NCC), Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and World Council
of Churches (WCC).  Its ecumenical activities are coordinated through
the ELCA Department for Ecumenical Affairs.

SEMINARS
     Participants chose four of the 12 seminars the National Workshop
on Christian Unity hosted -- topics ranging from "Ecumenism 101" to
interreligious dialogue.  Ecumenical networks also sponsored seminars.
     The Rev. A. Craig Settlage, associate executive director of the
ELCA Division for Ministry, conducted a seminar on "Living in Full
Communion: Orderly Exchange of Ordained Ministers of Word and
Sacrament."  Settlage had worked with staff of the ELCA's "full
communion" churches to make provision for the exchange of clergy -- a
feature of full communion.
     Exchange is more than just one pastor "filling in" for another
pastor and less than a pastor transferring from one church to another,
said Settlage.  The pastor remains a pastor of the sending church but is
"authorized by the receiving church to serve in a ministry setting,
usually for a term," he said.
     Settlage stressed that a pastor serves a congregation of another
denomination "at the invitation of the receiving church in consultation
with the sending church."  The pastor abides by the policies of the
receiving church but remains a pastor of the sending church, he said.
     Full communion churches will be changed by exchanging clergy, said
Settlage.  Pastors will become more versed in their own traditions and
in the traditions of other Christians, he said.
     The Rev. G. Scott Cady, St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church,
Cornwall, Conn., and the Rev. Christopher L. Webber, author and retired
Episcopal priest, Sharon, Conn., gave an EDEO-LERN seminar on their new
book, "Lutherans and Episcopalians Together: A Guide to Understanding."
      "The ecumenical enterprise is a tricky business," said Webber.
Two churches may use the same signs, symbols and words to mean different
things, while using different signs, symbols and words to mean the same
things, he said.
     European bishops were officers of the state, administering the
state church, said Webber.  The histories of Lutheran and Episcopal
bishops in the United States are different, and bishops serve as more
than just administrators, he said.
     ELCA-Episcopal full communion allows the two churches to ask
together: "What are bishops?" and "What are bishops for?"  Webber
recommended that the churches also discuss the roles of deacons and lay
ministers.
     Cady said many Lutheran pastors usually learn about other
denominations by talking with other Lutherans, and they're usually
wrong.  He urged clergy to "engage in more deliberate conversation with
people in other traditions about themselves."
     Churchwide "agreements may not guide ecumenism in your place,"
said Cady, encouraging congregations to visit neighboring churches.  He
asked the welcoming churches to be themselves.
     "My parishioners like to see what is distinct in the Episcopal
Church," Cady said.  "We don't want to go to the Episcopal Church and
have them do us the favor of singing all Lutheran hymns."
     The Rev. David L. Veal, retired Episcopal priest, Chapel of the
Transfiguration, Lubbock, Texas, led a seminar on his book, "In a
Central Way: A Contemporary Look at Lutheran and Episcopal Liturgies."
He said the liturgies that Episcopalians and Lutherans use in their
worship services were developed together centuries ago.
     Veal said the primary difference was the language being used --
English or German.  Denominational differences in the liturgies were
developed later, he said.
     The Rev. Jerald L. Folk, director, Wisconsin Council of Churches,
Sun Prairie, Wis., and Dr. Carol LaHurd, visiting associate professor
of religion, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., presented a
seminar on grassroots ecumenism.  Both are ELCA members.
     Folk said ecumenical activities -- both social and theological --
often percolate up from congregations to the larger church.  At the same
time, agreements between church bodies are relevant when they are
received and implemented by congregations, he said.
     Stories about problems with reception are plentiful, said Folk,
but he wanted to hear success stories.  So, he asked diocesan and synod
staff to send him reports and newspaper clippings.
     Folk sorted the responses into three categories -- celebrations,
education and administration.  He shared stories of how ecumenical
agreements inspired joint worship services and covenants between local
churches; how local churches co-sponsored conferences and resources; and
how pastors served two congregations of different denominations and
congregations serve members of two denominations.
     LaHurd offered examples of how Lutheran dialogues with the
Episcopal Church, Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church
have improved working relationships among those churches in North
Carolina.  The ELCA North Carolina Synod has started its own
"conversations with our Baptist neighbors," she said.
     Augsburg Lutheran Church, Winston-Salem, N.C., started and funded
a regional dialogue with the Moravian Church in America that resulted in
Lutheran-Moravian full communion in the United States, said LaHurd.
     LaHurd also led a plenary discussion of Lutheran-Episcopal full
communion.  She reminded workshop participants that the goal of
Christian unity is "not a post-modern invention" but was a dream St.
Paul expressed in his letters to early congregations.
     It's difficult to explain to people of other faiths why
Christianity, living with the grace of Jesus Christ for 2000 years, is
not only fragmented but sometimes internally hostile, said LaHurd.
     The Rev. William G. Rusch, executive director, Foundation for a
Conference on Faith and Order in North America, New York, led a seminar
on "The Church, Its Faith and Its Unity."
     An ELCA pastor and former director of the ELCA Department for
Ecumenical Affairs, Rusch is former director of the Faith and Order
Commission, National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
     Rusch outlined plans for a Second Conference on Faith and Order in
North America to discuss "the theological center of the ecumenical
movement."  The first such continental conference was held in 1957 at
Oberlin, Ohio.
     The World Council of Churches has hosted five World Conferences on
Faith and Order -- the first in 1927 at Lausanne, Switzerland, and most
recent in 1993 at Santiago de Compostella, Spain.
     "Faith and Order" and "Life and Work" are two strands of the
ecumenical movement, said Rusch.  Life and work involves Christians in
common social services and projects.  "Faith and order is the
theological agenda of the ecumenical movement," he said.
     Plans for the second North American conference are in their
infancy, said Rusch.  Letters of invitation have been sent to all church
bodies in the United States and Canada.  The invitation is to express a
willingness to join in a study process, he said, not to commit financial
support or make a decision at this time.
     The study process would involve as many people as possible, from
interested laity to theological faculties, in 2002 and 2003, said Rusch.
The continental conference could be held in 2004, he said, at a location
yet to be decided.
     Rusch said the purpose of the conference is to complement the work
of national and world councils and to involve churches that may not be
members of those councils, such as the Roman Catholic Church.  Its goal
is to "enable churches to organize in mission together," he said.

WORSHIP
     The ecumenical networks planned several worship services during
the workshop.  The services blended the liturgies of more than one
tradition and often celebrated ecumenical relations between two or more
Christian denominations.
     A "centerpiece" of the workshop was a Lutheran-Episcopal Eucharist
at St. Paul's Cathedral to celebrate the new full communion relationship
between the ELCA and Episcopal Church.  The Rt. Rev. Gethin Hughes,
bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, preached, and the Rev.
Murray D. Finck, bishop of the Pacifica Synod, Yorba Linda, Calif.,
presided at the Lord's Supper.
     Hughes recalled the story of Jesus' disciples ending a
disappointing day of fishing.  Jesus told the disciples to go out one
more time and "fish from the other side of the boat."  The disciples
followed that advice and pulled in so many fish that they needed the
help of other boats.
     The Lutheran-Episcopal agreement is "the work of many people who
were willing to fish from the other side of the boat," exploring visions
of faith from a different perspective, said Hughes.  The obstacles
seemed insurmountable, he said.  "Fishing on the other side of the boat
is exciting, but it's scary."
     "The concept of having a partner in the faith is foreign to most
of us," said Hughes.  Americans are individualists who would rather go
it alone and "talk about having a personal savior in the same terms that
they talk about having a personal trainer," he said.
     Hughes said Finck and he are sharing "many wonderful dreams of how
we will work together."  He said they are cooperating in their
territory's chaplaincies, campus ministries, serving ministries,
Hispanic ministry, and in deciding where to plant new churches.  There
won't be any "gas station churches," he said, "two churches on the same
corner, selling the same octane."
     Dr. Robert W. Edgar, an ordained elder in the United Methodist
Church and general secretary of the NCC, New York, delivered the sermon
during a worship service CUIC sponsored.  The world can support about 12
billion people, he said.  "We'll be there by the end of this century."
     "God is calling us at this time to do extraordinary things," he
said.  Biblical prophets and disciples "looked a lot like us -- ordinary
people called to do extraordinary things."
     "God is reminding us that not only are none of us too old or too
young to get involved, but now is the time to act," said Edgar.  "We
need to eliminate poverty in our time."

LUNCHEONS
     The workshop's luncheon speakers addressed audiences of two or
more of the ecumenical networks.
     The Rev. Michael K. Kinnamon, a pastor of the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ) and professor of mission and peace, Eden
Theological Seminary, Webster Grove, Mo., is general secretary of COCU.
He described how COCU plans to become CUIC in January 2002.
     Kinnamon said the COCU churches will continue to consult on the
issues of ministry that still keep them from exchanging ministers, but
the churches will work together in every other aspect of "full
communion" until the churches vote in 2007 about entering into full
communion.
     "It makes sense that some of the churches in full communion with
COCU members be involved in that conversation," said Kinnamon.  The ELCA
and Moravian Church in America have been invited to be "partners in
mission and dialogue" -- participating in CUIC's ministry discussion and
the group's emphasis on combating racism.
     The Rev. Louis Weil, professor of liturgics, Episcopal Church
Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, Calif., addressed a luncheon
sponsored by EDEO, LERN and NADEO.  He talked about authority in the
church -- from the laity to the papacy.
     Ecumenical discussions about authority have included too little
about the laity as "the bearers of the living faith," said Weil.
Lutheran reformers saw authority in bishops who, in turn, were
accountable to the laity, he said.
     Weil said he hoped ecumenical dialogues would lead Christianity
"toward a more balanced understanding of all the authorities," including
the laity.

PLENARIES
     The National Workshop on Christian Unity hosted an opening worship
service and two plenary addresses.
     Bishop George D. McKinney, founding pastor of St. Stephen's Church
of God in Christ, San Diego, gave the opening sermon at Mission San
Diego de Alcala.  When Christians work together, God accomplishes great
things through them, he said.
     Dismantling apartheid, racism, sexism "and all other 'isms'" may
seem like overwhelming tasks, said McKinney.  "Only God can do these
things," he said.  "His glory shines through great acts of power."
     "There is an essential unity that God has granted to those who
believe in Jesus Christ," said McKinney.  "The world will know that God
is, in Christ, reconciling us to him."
     John H. Erickson, professor of canon law and church history, St.
Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, was the keynote speaker.  "The
end of communism brought the end of ecumenism as we've known it," he
said.
     The established Orthodox churches of the East have a greater need
to distance themselves and emphasize what makes them different from
other Christian churches now that the void left by communism created
what many Western churches seem to consider "a new religious free
market," said Erickson.
     Ecumenical partners seem more interested in entering into
competition than in helping Orthodox churches rebuild, he said.
     Robert K. Welsh, president, Council on Christian Unity, Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ), Indianapolis, was the closing speaker.  He
acknowledged that he has returned to full-time work in the ecumenical
movement after a ten-year hiatus, and he pointed out several changes and
consistencies he noticed.
     "I'm overwhelmed by the amount of ecumenical progress made over
the past ten years," said Welch, listing full-communion agreements
between the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church
of Christ (UCC) and between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, Moravian
Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in
America and UCC, the Lutheran-Catholic "Joint Declaration on the
Doctrine of Justification" and the Consultation on Church Union forming
Churches Uniting in Christ.
     Welch said ten years ago the NWCU was made largely of white male
clergy, and that hasn't changed very much.  "The world has moved; the
church has moved; even the ecumenical movement has moved," he said,
challenging participants to intentionally open the workshop to the whole
Church.
     Welch noted "a new sense of trust and honesty in dealing with one
another" and urged participants to "be centered in prayer."  He said,
"We must begin with a willingness to confess in humility in Christ that
we have wounded one another."
     "Division within the body of Christ is sin," said Welch.
"Ecumenism is a holy task -- an accomplishment of God."
-- -- --
     Information about the book by Cady and Webber, "Lutherans and
Episcopalians Together: A Guide to Understanding," is available at
http://www.cowley.org/books/cady.asp#Lutherans on the Web site of Cowley
Publications, Boston.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html