wfn.org | Methodists will seek meeting with Lutherans, Catholics

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Sept. 30, 1999   News media contact: Tim Tanton**(615)742-5470**Nashville,
Tenn.     10-21-71BP{500}

NOTE: For additional reports on the World Methodist Council Executive
Committee's meeting in Hong Kong, see UMNS stories #478, 488, 496, 497, 498
and 501. Photographs are available.

By Tim Tanton*

HONG KONG (UMNS) - The World Methodist Council will seek a consultation with
Lutheran and Catholic scholars to explore a breakthrough agreement on a key
article of faith.

The consultation would "celebrate and solidify" an agreement reached between
the Lutheran and Catholic churches on the subject of justification, said
Geoffrey Wainwright, chairman of the WMC's ecumenics and dialogue committee.

Wainwright mentioned the idea for the consultation during a report to the
council's executive committee, which met Sept. 20-24 in Hong Kong. The
ecumenics and dialogue committee's report was one of many given during the
weeklong meeting, attended by Methodist leaders from around the world. The
WMC links Methodist and United Churches in 108 countries.

On Oct. 31 in Germany, the Lutherans and Catholics will sign an agreement on
a common understanding of justification, which has been a major point of
difference within Christianity since the Protestant Reformation. The WMC
executive committee voted to send letters of congratulations to both
denominations, and the Rev. Joe Hale, top staff executive of the council,
has been invited to attend the signing.

The two churches agree that justification comes entirely through the grace
of God and that God forgives us freely, Wainwright said. By receiving God's
forgiveness in faith and trust, we are freed to do works pleasing to God.
Those works don't earn our salvation but are the fruits of salvation.

"The fact that the Lutherans and the Catholics now believe they have settled
one of the key issues of the Reformation will create a new relationship
between the Lutherans and the Catholics," Wainwright said. All future
dialogues between Catholics and Protestants will be affected by this
agreement, he said.

The ecumenics and dialogue committee suggested that the WMC seek a
"three-sided consultation between Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Methodists
to investigate and imagine the possibilities that would spring from" the
agreement, Wainwright told the executive committee. General Secretary Hale
will explore with Lutheran and Catholic officials the possibility of holding
a dialogue and will ask one of the ecumenical institutes around the world to
host such a meeting.

The WMC has been in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church since 1967,
making those conversations the longest running of any dialogue between the
Vatican and the Protestant family of churches. Several Methodist churches
are in communion with Lutheran churches in Europe. Because of those
relationships, the Methodists could be asked to join in signing the
agreement on justification or associate themselves in some way with it,
according to Wainwright.

Another important point for Methodists is that the premises of the agreement
on justification can now be taken for granted and built into future
dialogues, he noted.

Dialogues between the two churches have made "significant contributions to
ecumenical reflection worldwide," said Bishop Michael Putney of Australia,
representing the Catholic Church.

"We have done, I would say, very solid theological work on topics that have
partly overlapped with other dialogues, but on some topics we have been
trailblazers," said Wainwright, who has been chairman of the ecumenics and
dialogue committee since 1986.

Four statements have resulted from those dialogues. They addressed: the Holy
Spirit, following a 1981 dialogue in Honolulu; the church, 1986, Nairobi,
Kenya; the apostolic tradition, 1991, Singapore; and revelation and faith,
1996, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Adopting those statements has allowed the dialogues to approach tougher
issues. The Methodists and Catholics are now looking at "thorny questions"
concerning teaching authority in the church, Wainwright said. In Methodist
traditions, authority rests in a legislative body, or conference. In the
Catholic Church, authority resides in the bishops and, ultimately, the pope.

A report on the teaching authority of the church will be made at the 18th
World Methodist Conference, which meets in 2001 in Brighton, England, Putney
said.

In addition, differences remain on such topics as the role of the Virgin
Mary in the faith. Mary's role is much more prominent in the Catholic Church
than it is in Methodism.

The Methodists and Catholics agree that the Scriptures are the primary,
permanent source of the faith, Wainwright said. Both traditions profess the
classic creeds, the Nicene and Apostle's creeds, and agree on other points
as well.

Elsewhere on the ecumenical front, Wainwright reported that dialogues are
developing with the Pentecostal and Holiness churches. Progress also is
being made in relations with the Anglican Church, and Archbishop of
Canterbury George Carey will speak at the United Methodist Church's General
Conference next May.

Dialogues with the Orthodox, however, are stalled, Wainwright said. Though
the Orthodox are active ecumenically in the United States, they are in a
mode of withdrawal from ecumenism in other parts of the world, particularly
Russia, Wainwright said. 

During the ecumenical report, the executive committee adopted a resolution
expressing appreciation to the World Council of Churches (WCC) for its
desire to cooperate more closely with church world communions in developing
programs and activities. The WCC, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is regarded
as the leading ecumenical movement, and it is strongly supported by
Methodist traditions worldwide.

A letter will be sent to WCC General Secretary Konrad Raiser regarding the
2001 World Methodist Conference in Brighton and expressing a desire for a
closer working relationship between the WMC and WCC.

In other business, the executive committee:

	*	Adopted a resolution supporting an appeal for a moratorium
on the death penalty by the year 2000. The appeal is being made by the
Community of St. Egidio in Rome. The Catholic community is a recipient of
the WMC's World Methodist Peace Award.

	*	Heard a fiery sermon by Bishop Mvume Dandala of South
Africa. "Let us now, more than ever, stand up and announce that God is in
charge," he said. The kingdom of God is here, and all that the world has to
do is "embrace the Savior," he said. God speaks to all people from all walks
of life, and God is the answer to the problems of the world - violence,
AIDS, poverty, he said. "I challenge the people called Methodist to announce
this message with more power than before."
	
	*	Issued a statement of support for former Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev and his family upon the death of his wife, Raisa.
Gorbachev is a World Methodist Peace Award winner.

	*	Heard the Rev. Kenneth Greet of Britain deliver an eloquent
remembrance of the Rev. Donald English, former WMC chairman, who died Aug.
28.

	# # #
*Tanton is news editor for United Methodist News Service.

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