wfn.org | Yale Ecumenical Conference Lauds Lutheran-Catholic Declaration

[News News <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 8, 2000

YALE ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE LAUDS LUTHERAN-CATHOLIC DECLARATION
00-50-FI/UH*

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on the
Doctrine of Justification was the focus of an international ecumenical
symposium Feb. 4-6 at the Yale University Divinity School and the
Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, New Haven, Conn.  Anglican, Lutheran,
Reformed and Roman Catholic leaders attended "The Yale Conference on
Ecumenism: Justification and the Future of the Ecumenical Movement."
     Representatives of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the
Vatican signed the Joint Declaration last year in Augsburg, Germany.
For the first time since the Reformation, both churches made a statement
on the doctrine that severed the unity of the Western church in the 16th
century.
     Symposium participants included the Rev. Christian Krause, LWF
president and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Brunswick
(Germany), Bishop Walter Kasper, Secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical
Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and Sir Henry Chadwick, an
Anglican professor of theology at Oxford University, Oxford, United
Kingdom.
     The Rev. H. George Anderson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Rev. Robert L. Isaksen, bishop of
the ELCA New England Synod, and the Rev. Canon David W. Perry, director,
Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Episcopal Church in the
U.S.A., attended the symposium.
     In his introductory remarks, the Rev. William G. Rusch, director
of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the U.S.A. (NCC), raised the question of whether the Anglican
and Reformed traditions might also enter into the Joint Declaration.
     Rusch, an ELCA pastor and former director of the ELCA Department
for Ecumenical Affairs, asked whether the bilateral agreement on
justification might be a vehicle for advancing ecumenical relations
among several Christian traditions.
     "We held our hands together as churches, and we wish to let go
never again," Kasper said of the Joint Declaration in his keynote
address.  "Our unity in reconciled diversity is an image of the triune
God," he said.
     Kasper charted three frontiers for ecumenism: the interpretation
of Scripture, ecclesiology (theological doctrine relating to the church)
and ministry, and the need for a new common language in which to express
the core of the gospel.  He noted that the language of the 16th-century
debates on justification is no longer relevant to most Christians.
     Chadwick acknowledged several areas of agreement between the
Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed and Roman Catholic traditions, but he said
ecclesiology continues to divide Anglicans, the Eastern Orthodox and
Roman Catholics.  He said the question of church authority will continue
to remain significant in future ecumenical dialogues.
     Dr. Gabriel Fackre, a theologian of the United Church of Christ
and former professor of theology at Andover Newton Theological School in
Newton Centre, Mass., responded from the Reformed perspective.
     Dr. Michael Root, an ELCA associate in ministry and professor of
systematic theology at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio,
responded from the Lutheran tradition.  Root is former director of the
Lutheran Ecumenical Institute in Strasbourg, France.
     Krause summarized the contributions of symposium speakers.  He
said that lifting up the theological approach of the declaration enabled
academic theologians at the universities to concern themselves more with
ecumenism again.
     The LWF president said the significance of the Joint Declaration
was to be found in the way the document related to the core of the
biblical message.  He noted that the "universal character" of the Joint
Declaration was acknowledged.  Other recent interdenominational
agreements are regionally limited while this document is universally
valid for both partners, he said.
     Krause said he was impressed by the Anglican and Reformed
participants' expressions of joy about the Joint Declaration.  Both
traditions had voiced their interest repeatedly in continuing to develop
this ecumenical document in such a way that it would include other
denominations in addition to the Lutheran and Catholic traditions.
     Dr. George A. Lindbeck, professor emeritus of theology at Yale and
a Lutheran theologian, gave an overview of the history and significance
of ecumenical theology at Yale.  For Lindbeck, the conference
constituted a revival within the academy of ecumenical theology, which
he described as having been "relatively dormant" in the past few
decades.
     R. William Franklin, dean of the Berkeley Divinity School,
described the symposium as a good opportunity for the universities to
regain their leading roles within the ecumenical movement, for the
development of a new forum for ecumenical activities, and for
encouraging a new generation of future theologians to work for the unity
of the churches.
     "The fact that the university was the context for the discussion,
with church leaders, theologians and students participating together,
opens up a new model for the future," said Franklin.  "As an
inter-traditional divinity school, Yale offered a perfect setting for
dialogue about how different traditions can learn, worship and work
together."
     The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70
countries representing nearly 59.5 million of the world's 63.1 million
Lutherans.  LWF offices are in Geneva, Switzerland.  The ELCA is a
member of the LWF.
     The conference was sponsored through a joint partnership of Yale
University Divinity School, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and the
NCC's Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches,
with the assistance of the Luce Foundation.

*Udo Hahn, press officer for the LWF German national committee, and the
Anglican Communion News Service contributed to this story.

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