The Ecumenical Movement and
the Future of the LCA
1. CTICR Proposal for full membership in LWF.
·
At National Convention this year (2003), the Church
will be faced with a proposal issuing from the CTICR advocating that the LCA
enter into full altar and pulpit fellowship with the 136 member churches and
synods of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).
·
Entering into altar and pulpit fellowship with these
churches would also imply entering into fellowship with the other church bodies
with whom these churches are in fellowship, including churches who openly
advocate gay marriage, women clergy, and who reject the real presence in the
sacrament.
·
The proposal from the CTICR (which does not have
unanimous consensus), repeatedly manifests a view whose roots lie in the
Reformed understanding of the Sacrament of the Altar as simply a fellowship
meal in memory of Jesus. According to this view, those who believe in Christ
should commune together, even if they are not one in doctrine and practice.
They see Holy Communion as the means to church unity.
- The following quote from a well-known Methodist
ecumenist makes this clear: ‘Is it
possible that the eucharist… may have a constructive part to play in the
attainment of reconciliation among Christian communities whose separation
stands in contradiction to their own message? For this to happen, the
stronger stress will have to fall on the eucharist’s value as promoting
unity rather than on its value as expressive of existing unity….’
- However, one cannot take a general idea of unity
and then manipulate the Lord’s Supper in relation to it as a means to an
end. The supper is not ours to manipulate as we will. The Church’s use of
it is determined and limited by the Lord’s intention set out in his
institution of it. This idea of using the sacrament as a means of
furthering ecumenical closeness between parties still divided in doctrine
first arose in the sixteenth century among Christians who rejected the real
presence of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament.
- The authors of the CTICR proposal admit that the
LCA has always understood the pure teaching of the gospel, the necessary
foundation for ecclesial unity and God-pleasing communion fellowship, ‘to
imply the full doctrinal content of the Book of Concord’, and that the LCA
has therefore ‘made full agreement on the Book of Concord a condition of
church fellowship.’
- Having said as much, however, the authors go on to
expound some ‘other interpretation, which we adopt here and which
is also adopted by the LWF….’ Members of the Church should be made aware
that any ‘other interpretation’ represents a departure from the LCA’s
Theses of Agreement, and so involves a reconstitution of the LCA as such.
2. The Need for
Clarity and Precision in Ecumenical Agreements
- From the earliest times in theological controversy
it has been recognised that what is essential for church unity is not
verbal correspondence in doctrinal formulations but true agreement in
doctrinal meaning and substance. Get the sense right, and the words will
follow. Where this has happened in the ecumenical efforts of the 20th
and 21st centuries we can be truly thankful to God.
- However in the pressure to bring about actual
advancement in church fellowship it may also happen that dialogue
partners, especially when they share some common historical heritage,
settle on doctrinal statements using familiar terminology but understood
by each in different ways. This is a particularly dangerous tendency against
we must be on guard. It is one of the hallmarks of deconstructionist
ideology to assume that words carry no meaning except the meaning
individuals may freely and indiscriminately ascribe to them.
- Ecclesially this kind of anti-reason wreaks havoc.
It is already at work in postmodern liberalism and church-growthism where
increasingly we witness groups propagating a homogenous form of
Christianity to which, since outward form is alleged to possess no
intrinsic relation to doctrinal content, each individual group may attach
their own confessional identity. As one guru recently boasted, the
successful churches of the future will exhibit the ‘same language,
different theologies.’
Here the principles of ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘reconciled diversity’
have, in their unchecked supremacy, destroyed utterly all doctrinal,
liturgical, and even rational integrity.
- Throughout history, the true Church of God has
always recognised these dangers. Jeremiah warns against leaders who
supplant God’s word with human words and opinions (Jer 23:1-40). St Paul
warns against those who teach ‘scandals that are contrary to the teaching
you have learned’, urging us to ‘keep away from them’ (Rom 16:17). Our
Lord himself warns those churches who tolerate false doctrine and commends
those who recognise and remove it (Rev 2-3). Unambiguous confession of
the true faith necessitates the rejection of error (Tit 1:9). To
confess allegiance to the Scriptures or the Confessions but to refuse to
isolate and remove falsehood is to entertain a grave inconsistency.
- When the two Lutheran churches joined in 1966 to
form a single synod, they did so with the solemn conviction that such
union was a necessary outcome of the fact that each church held to one
common understanding of the Christian faith and were prepared to act
according to it. They were agreed that such fellowship could only result
from the prior ‘unanimity in the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the right
administration of the Sacraments.’ The flip-side of this agreement was
their recognition that ‘we cannot acknowledge ourselves to be in
fellowship with churches with which we are not one in doctrine and
practice.’
3.
Summary
I close with what I hope might serve as an example of
true ‘ecumenism’, by quoting the words of one-time Orthodox Bishop,
Metropolitan Emilianos of Calabria, with which our Lutheran forebears and,
indeed, every true Christian, would certainly express fundamental agreement:
‘The final
goal, of which we must never lose sight, is unity of faith. This does not
involve a steam-rolling process, in which everyone would renounce a part of his
faith, in order to meet on common ground. Ecumenical efforts should never be
identified with diplomatic negotiations, where the custom is to make mutual
concessions. In this case we are dealing with divine revelation, in which God
has made known to the world his Mysteries and his commandments. Together we
must seek this truth – the whole truth. We must never remain content with the
highest common denominator able to satisfy all sides; for that would only be an
apparent unity. It is not a question of what men can accept, but of what the
Lord has willed.’
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