Title: Lutherans Active in National Ecumenical Workshop
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

May 15, 1998

LUTHERANS ACTIVE IN NATIONAL ECUMENICAL WORKSHOP
98-17-108-FI

     ST. PAUL, Minn. (ELCA) -- Members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America made an impact on many different aspects of the National
Workshop on Christian Unity.  About 80 Lutherans were among the 500 people
who came together here April 27-30.
     Dr. Diane L. Jacobson, professor of Old Testament, Luther Seminary in
St. Paul, led two morning sessions of Bible study.  She asked the
participants to examine two sections of the Christian Bible for what they
said about sacred space, sacred time, sacred people, sacred words and the
responses of the people.
     "Think about what we do in our congregations.  We come together as
God's people to hear God's word proclaimed and explained.  We praise God
for the gift of this word, answering with a loud 'Amen.'  We set apart
special, holy times to listen and to learn again and again," she said.
"The challenge of ecumenical relations is to find ever new ways to transfer
these unifying activities and categories of the sacred to our common work
together."
     Jesus warned his home congregation not to believe "that we are God's
exclusive sacred people and that God's promise is our exclusive property,"
said Jacobson.  "We believe that our job is to convince the world that
we've got it right rather than share the good news of God's remarkable
declaration of love and compassion for all the world.  Setting free is
God's work through Christ.  Communicating that freedom in such a way that
we share the gift rather than claim exclusive rights is our work."
     In a seminar on the nature of the church, the Rev. William G. Rusch,
an ELCA pastor and director of the Faith and Order Commission, National
Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., said studying the various
ways Christians organize themselves has become "a pivotal theme engaging
the churches in their journey toward structural unity."
     "It is easy to agree on what the church is and what the church is
for," he said.  "It is more difficult to describe who the church is."
     Rusch said the NCC's Faith and Order Commission is working on a
study, The Nature and Purpose of the Church, that should be completed in
three or four years.  He called it "a front-burner issue in the ecumenical
movement."
     Dr. Anant Rambachan, professor of Asian religions, St. Olaf College,
Northfield, Minn., presented a seminar on confessing the Christian faith
where the majority of people are not Christians and Christianity is not
held in a position of privilege.  Rambachan is a Hindu teaching at an ELCA
college.
     "The best witness for a Hindu is not the proclamation of the gospel
but the witness of life," he said.  "For Hindus the teacher is one who
knows the traditions and lives a life grounded in God."
     Jesus Christ is not the sole possession of Christians, said
Rambachan.  "The harmony of justice and life continues to make Jesus an
attractive figure for Hindus."  The quality of Jesus to shed materialism
also has an impact on Hindus, he said.
     The next National Workshop on Christian Unity will be held May 3-6,1999, in
Rochester, N.Y.  The Rev. Pamela S.H. Hunter, Peace Lutheran
Church, Rochester, will work with its planners.


For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html