DUBUQUE, Iowa (ELCA) -- Full communion with the Episcopal Church is "natural, easy, like breathing," said the Rev. Donald S. Armentrout, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) pastor and professor of church history at the Episcopal School of Theology at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn.
Armentrout addressed about 100 participants at the "Mission in Ecumenical View" conference at Wartburg Seminary here March 23. Wartburg is one of eight ELCA seminaries.
Calling upon more than 30 years of experience studying and teaching among Episcopalians, he urged participants to welcome the mission opportunities and gifts, including the historic episcopate, which the ELCA will receive through "Called to Common Mission." CCM is a full communion proposal with The Episcopal Church. The 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly adopted CCM; a general convention of the Episcopal Church will vote on the full communion agreement in July.
The ELCA's acceptance of the historic episcopate as part of CCM has sparked controversy within the denomination. It calls for ELCA bishops to be installed by three bishops who stand in a succession of bishops reaching back to the earliest days of the Christian church. This line is continued by laying on of hands by bishops within this line. Under CCM, only an ELCA bishop could ordain ELCA pastors.
"The reason I'm committed to Lutherans having the historic episcopate is not for apostolicity but for the sake of catholicity," Armentrout said. "There are certain ways we Christians try to ensure that we have apostolicity grounded in the faith taught by Jesus' apostles" -- through means such as the creeds, the New Testament, the historic episcopate, the Lord's Supper and Baptism.
"We should adopt the historic episcopate not to ensure apostolicity but for the sake of catholicity for the unity of the church," he added. "It is the way most of the world's Christians organize themselves."
Lutherans dropped the historic episcopate out of necessity during the 16th century Reformation. Roman Catholic bishops did not join the Lutheran movement, requiring the reformers to drop the practice despite their desire to maintain it, Armentrout said. He cited article 14 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, a Lutheran confessional document, in which the reformers affirmed their desire to maintain historical ecclesiastical orders that included ordination by bishops within the historic episcopate.
The Episcopal Church and ELCA "are in agreement in all major issues of faith," Armentrout said. "Among laity there is complete reconciliation in the sacrament of Baptism..... [CCM] is about reconciliation at the level of order and polity. We do this not because [the historic episcopate] is essential for salvation but for the sake of unity in the church." Armentrout said the historic episcopate symbolizes modern Christians' oneness with God's people of every time and place.
Such unity makes a positive difference in mission, said the Rev. Cynthia Rauh Banks, an Episcopal priest who until recently served St. Thomas, an ELCA-Episcopal church in Campbellsville, Ky.
It grabbed people's attention "that two Christian traditions had come together (to start a new mission) in this community at the lowest point of its life," she said. "We are called to reveal the healing and reconciliation that is ours in Christ Jesus. Just as marriage says something to the culture that living together doesn't, full communion communicates something to the culture that simply working together doesn't. It says we are one in Christ Jesus and that the reconciling power of the gospel is real."
Once full communion is adopted, the two churches should seek to do everything together they can, aligning or merging programs for the sake of more powerful and efficient witness, Armentrout said. He listed several joint mission possibilities CCM offers, including mission congregations, youth ministry, chaplaincies, campus ministry, new liturgical revision, shared facilities and adult catechetical work.
Editor's note: The spelling on the Rev. Cynthia Rauh Banks' middle name
is correct.
*The Rev. David L. Miller is editor of The Lutheran, the magazine of the
ELCA.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html
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About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
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