22.10.2008

LUTHERAN-REFORMED JOINT COMMISSION

Buenos Aires, Argentina

The third meeting of the Lutheran-Reformed Joint Commission took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 3 to 9 October 2008. The joint communiqué from the meeting is below.

COMMUNIQUÉ

The third meeting of the Lutheran–Reformed Joint Commission took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 3 to 9 October 2008.

This Commission has been appointed by The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Its goal is to seek ways to encourage more visible unity among Reformed and Lutheran churches around the world.

Members attending the meeting were:
- Reformed: Rev. Prof. Anna Case-Winters, co-chair (USA), Rev. Prof. Priscille Djomhoué (Cameroon), Rev. Dr. Mindawati Perangin-Angin (Indonesia), Rev. Prof. Dirk J. Smit (South Africa), Prof. Dr. Michel Grandjean (Switzerland), and Rev. Dr. Douwe Visser (Switzerland) as WARC co-secretary.
- Rev. Prof. Daniel Beros (Argentina), Prof. Dr. Michael Weinrich (Germany), and the consultant, Rev. Dr. Gottfried W. Locher (Switzerland), were unable to come.
- Lutheran: Bishop em. Prof. Július Filo, co-chair (Slovak Republic), Rev. Prof. Anneli Aejmelaeus (Finland), Prof. Dr. Luis Henrique Dreher (Brazil), Superintendent Dieter Lorenz (Germany), Rev. Prof. André Birmelé (Strasbourg, France) as consultant, and Prof. Dr. Kathryn Johnson (USA) as LWF co-secretary. Ms. Sybille Graumann provided administrative support.
- Bishop Thomas Barnett (Sierra Leone) was unable to attend.

The meeting was hosted by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in cooperation with the Iglesia Evangélica del Rio de la Plata, whose leaders and staff members helped to provide for the warm hospitality extended to the commission. At the first meeting Rev. Frederico H. Schaeffer and Rev. Juan Abelardo Schvindt, came to welcome the group, and on Sunday, 5 October they were welcomed at the Iglesia Evangélica Reformada in Barracas. After the service, an excursion was arranged to the cathedral at San Isidore and to Tigre.

In other visits, the commission learned about the ecumenical theological education provided at the Instituto Superior Evangelico de Estudios Teologicos (ISEDET) from its rector, Dr. Pablo Andinach and several members of the faculty. They were welcomed at a service of Holy Communion and a reception by members of the Iglesia Evangélica Luterana Unida. On Tuesday 7 October 2008 a panel of guests from local churches helped the commission to understand the closely intertwined histories of Lutheran and Reformed communities in Argentina over two centuries and their current challenges and hopes. Members of the panel were Gabriela Mulder (Vice-President of the Alianza de Iglesias Presbiterianas y Reformadas de América Latina (AIPRAL), Gustavo Garcia Escardo (Secretary of the Board of the Iglesia Reformada de Argentina), Rodolfo Reinich (Pastor-President, Iglesia Reformada de Buenos Aires) and Frederico Schaefer (Pastor -President Iglesia Evangélica del Río de la Plata, IERP) and Pastor Alan Eldrid from the Lutheran Church.

The impending merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches with the Reformed Ecumenical Council in 2010 touches directly on the work of this commission, and so it was interested to discuss the report of Douwe Visser, “Moving towards Communion: The World Communion of Reformed Churches.” It also received from its consultants a crystallization of discussion on confession and confessing at its second meeting in 2007 in Namibia, “Confessing Christ: On the Authority of Confessions.”

The commission had decided in 2007 that at its next meeting it would devote itself to the Church. To guide this discussion, the commission asked members to respond to the ecclesiological statement of the Communion of Evangelical Churches in Europe, “The Church of Jesus Christ,” with an emphasis on asking if and how this statement could be helpful in their contexts.

These responses were discussed:

“A Finnish Perspective to “The Church of Jesus Christ’” by Anneli Aejmelaeus;

“Leuenberg as a Model for a More Universal Agreement: A Contextual Commentary” by Anna Case-Winters;

“The Potential for Church Communion in the Brazilian Context: A Plausible Lutheran Assessment, with a few references to the Leuenberg Document on the Church” by Luis H. Dreher;

“Leuenberg as a Model for a More Universal Agreement: A Contextual Commentary” by Minda Perangin-Angin;

“Ecclesiological Foundations for more Visible Forums of Communion? A Southern African Response to the Leuenberg Ecclesiology of ‘The Church of Jesus Christ’” by Dirkie Smit;

The commission had earlier received, “Manifestations of Ecumenism in Africa Today: A Study of the Mainline and Pentecostal Churches in Cameroon” by Priscille Djomhoué.

Discussion turned to the shape of the commission’s conclusions and report. Tentatively, these emphases were identified:

Ecclesial communion: The commission affirmed the conclusions of earlier regional and international dialogues that there are no church-dividing differences between these two traditions from the Reformation. At many points difficult issues run through each of the two families rather than between them, and in other areas there are differences between the traditions which are to be not merely accepted but valued.

The commission expressed the hope that member churches would claim as gift the implications of the Reformers’ view that there could be multiple ecclesial shapes in which the Church of Jesus Christ could be recognized, according to the “satis est” principle discussed at the first meeting.

Ecclesial metanoia: the commission examined factors which have impeded our churches from moving forward into the life in communion which our theological agreement invites. It was recognized that these factors are often particular to their contexts, and that local churches must face the challenges from their own histories and present locations.

At the same time, the commission identified a certain “ecclesial deficit” which has beset our traditions from the beginning as an unintended consequence of the freedoms claimed in the Reformation. Emerging regional and national church identities in both traditions lost a full sense of catholicity beyond their own borders; in many places it has been too easy to respond to theological or cultural difference with a separate church. There has been too weak a reception of the implications of the unity of the Church confessed in the creeds. As this deficit has undermined the visible unity of the Church, it demands not only theological clarity but even more a repentance and conversion of heart. Christian life is life in the Church, and the traditions of the Reformation need to embrace anew this common life as integral to life in Christ.

Confessing that the church is a means of God’s grace integral to Christian life.

Ecclesial imagination: Through its meetings, the commission has seen and learned about a number of places where Lutheran and Reformed churches already live in communion. The commission intends as a part of its report to direct readers to the resources from these positive and still developing relations of communion.

But the need for all our churches is for imagination of a future together. This imagination invites initiatives at all levels of the life of our churches, but the commission has a special responsibility to speak to the communions which have given its mandate.

The next meeting of the Commission will be 28 January to 4 February 2010. The Lutheran World Federation will host the meeting and identify the venue.

At this meeting the commission will continue to explore differing emphases between and among their traditions on the Church. The principal focus will be a first form of the final report. In preparation for this meeting, a drafting group will prepare a proposed text to be circulated in advance. The group will consist at first of the co-chairs, the co-secretaries, and the consultants; they may call upon other members of the group for help as needed in their work.

The co-chairs will convey to WARC and to the LWF a request for a fifth meeting of this commission. This meeting would allow for responses from member churches to be considered in the final form submitted to our sponsoring bodies.