More Lutheran Educators Address 'Called to Common Mission'

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The faculties of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., and Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, both seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), have added their voices to the discussion of a Lutheran proposal for full communion with The Episcopal Church.
"The reasons to approve the document are numerous, and to our thinking, outweigh reasons for rejection," said an April 9 statement in which the Southern faculty unanimously supported "Called to Common Mission: A Lutheran Proposal for a Revision of the Concordat of Agreement" -- CCM for short.
The Trinity faculty admitted it was "not of one mind about this proposal." Trinity's statement offered the hope that "even our disagreements can serve to facilitate constructive discussion of the proposal" before the ELCA Churchwide Assembly votes on it this August in Denver.
"The majority of the faculty of Trinity Lutheran Seminary believes that, whatever the imperfections of the proposal, the CCM embodies an important step toward exhibiting the unity that the Lord wills for the church," it said. "This faculty believes that all of us must come to our own decision on this issue."
A round of Lutheran-Episcopal dialogues that began in 1983 developed a proposal for full communion between the two churches, "The Concordat of Agreement," and issued it in 1991.
A convention of the Episcopal Church approved the Concordat in 1997. The proposal failed to win a two-thirds majority of the ELCA assembly that year by six votes. The assembly asked that the Concordat be revised, taking its debate into account and clarifying the technical language of the dialogue. CCM was issued in November 1998 as that revision.
Lutherans and Episcopalians agree on the doctrine of "apostolic succession," an ongoing faithful proclamation of Christ. Episcopalians bring to the relationship the "historic episcopate," a succession of bishops as a sign of unity back to the earliest days of the Christian church.
Three elements must be included in a full-communion agreement between the ELCA and Episcopal Church, said the Trinity faculty: full recognition of the validity of past and present ordained Lutheran ministries; adequate expression of the Lutheran confessional teaching regarding ordained ministry and the ministry of the laity; and the Episcopal ecumenical requirement that Lutheran bishops participate in the "historic episcopate."
The Trinity statement lays out the views of opponents and supporters of CCM on five general topics: the mission of the church, the Lutheran doctrine of ministry, the historic episcopate, the interchangeability of ordained ministries and ritual.
In a personal statement, the Rev. Dennis A. Anderson, president of Trinity Lutheran Seminary, gave his reasons for supporting CCM.
"The visible unity of the Church is vital to God's mission that the world believe," said Anderson. "We are not free to pass by, ignore, neglect or fail to take action that promotes the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ, unless such action is in fact contrary to the gospel."
"We are free ... to accept the historic episcopate as a human but not a divine tradition," Anderson said.
"As faculty of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, we urge the 1999 assembly of the ELCA to approve 'Called to Common Mission,'" said the Southern statement, before outlining four reasons for its support of the proposal: + The Lutheran Confessions indicate a desire to hold onto the historic episcopate. + Acceptance of the historic episcopate is consistent with Luther's understanding of evangelical freedom. + "Called to Common Mission" makes a clear distinction between what founds church unity -- the gospel in word and sacrament -- and what expresses church unity -- the historic episcopate. + Approval of "Called to Common Mission" would be helpful to the mission of the church of Jesus Christ.
The Rev. H. Frederick Reisz Jr., president of Southern, issued a personal statement of support for CCM earlier in April. The faculty of the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia also announced its support for the full-communion proposal.
The faculty at Southern includes 18 professors. Trinity's faculty includes 24 professors.

EDITORS: The full text of "Called to Common Mission" is located at
http://www.elca.org/ea/proposal/text.html

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html