Introduction

A Formula of Agreement

 

(Adopted by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August 1997)

Introduction
The Lutheran Reformed Coordinating Committee, on February 3, 1997, called attention to the fact that A Formula of Agreement sets forth a fundamental doctrinal consensus that is based on and presumes the theological agreements of earlier Lutheran-Reformed dialogues, including the 1983 statement: "our unity in Christ compels us to claim our strong affinities in doctrine and practice. Both Lutheran and Reformed traditions:

    1. Affirm themselves a living part of the church catholic.
    2. Confess the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds.
    3. Affirm the doctrine of justification by faith as fundamental.
    4. Affirm the unique and final authority of Holy Scriptures in the church.
    5. Affirm the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper.
    6. Affirm the priesthood of all believers and have interpreted this as our servanthood to God and our service to the world.
    7. Affirm the vocation of all the baptized, which is service (ministry) in every aspect of their lives in their care of God's world.
    8. Affirm that they are in faithful succession in the apostolic Tradition and that faithful succession in this Tradition is all that is necessary for mutual recognition as part of the church catholic.
    9. Share a common definition of a church in the apostolic Tradition: a community where the word is rightly preached and the sacraments rightly ad-ministered.
    10. Identify a ministry of word and sacrament as insti-tuted by God.
    11. Ordain once to a ministry of word and sacrament, and the functions of such persons are identical.
    12. Understand that ordination is to the ministry of the church catholic. Such ordinations in both traditions have usually been by presbyters.
    13. Have granted the appropriateness under some circumstances of one ordained person exercising episkop, oversight (under a variety of titles including that of bishop), but both traditions have ordinarily exercised the function of episkop collegially through such structures as presbyteries and synods.
    14. Affirm that the church always must be open to further growth and reformation. Both traditions have been willing to be self-critical. Both traditions have become increasingly open to a historical-critical understanding of the history of the church and of their respective traditions within the apostolic Tradition." (An Invitation Action, pages 2-3).