This week (today and Thursday) we are considering the June 17, 2013 document, jointly published by the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation, called “From Conflict to Communion.” The paper’s introduction states:

In 2017, Lutheran and Catholic Christians will commemorate together the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation. Lutherans and Catholics today enjoy a growth in mutual understanding, cooperation, and respect. They have come to acknowledge that more unites than divides them: above all, common faith in the Triune God and the revelation in Jesus Christ, as well as recognition of the basic truths of the doctrine of justification.

Here is a basic outline of the document’s contents:

Foreword and Introduction
I. Commemorating the Reformation in an Ecumenical and Global Age
II. New Perspectives on Martin Luther and the Reformation
III. A Historical Sketch of the Lutheran Reformation and the Catholic Response
IV. Basic Themes of Martin Luther’s Theology in Light of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogues
V. Called to Common Commemoration
VI. Five Ecumenical Imperatives
Appendix: including Common Statements of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity

One of the important perspectives here is that we must view the past through the lens of ongoing developments, not vice versa.

It is no longer adequate simply to repeat earlier accounts of the Reformation period, which presented Lutheran and Catholic perspectives separately and often in opposition to one another. Historical remembrance always selects from among a great abundance of historical moments and assimilates the selected elements into a meaningful whole. Because these accounts of the past were mostly oppositional, they not infrequently intensified the conflict between the confessions and sometimes led to open hostility.

…In light of the renewal of Catholic theology evident in the Second Vatican Council, Catholics today can appreciate Martin Luther’s reforming concerns and regard them with more openness than seemed possible earlier.

While the Council of Trent largely defined Catholic relations with Lutherans for several centuries, its legacy must now be viewed through the lens of the actions of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). This Council made it possible for the Catholic Church to enter the ecumenical movement and leave behind the charged polemic atmosphere of the post-Reformation era. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), the Decree on Ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio), the Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitate Humanae), and the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum) are foundational documents for Catholic ecumenism. Vatican II, while affirming that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, also acknowledged, “many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity” (LG 8). There was a positive appreciation of what Catholics share with other Christian churches such as the creeds, baptism, and the Scriptures. A theology of ecclesial communion affirmed that Catholics are in a real, if imperfect, communion with all who confess Jesus Christ and are baptized (UR 2).

When discussing theological themes from Luther and the Reformation, only four are discussed in this document: justification, eucharist, ministry, and Scripture and tradition. Each topic is treated in a three-fold manner — (1) by looking at Luther’s approach, (2) Catholic concerns, and (3) how Luther and Catholic perspectives have been brought into dialogue with one another.

For Lutherans, the key theological theme is and always has been that of justification by faith. Here is some of what the document says about this in the “ecumenical dialogue” portion of its treatment:

Together Catholics and Lutherans confess: “By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works” (JDDJ 15). The phrase “by grace alone” is further explained in this way: “the message of justification…tells us that as sinners our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit in any way” (JDDJ 17).

It is within this framework that the limits and the dignity of human freedom can be identified. The phrase “by grace alone,” in regard to a human being’s movement toward salvation, is interpreted in this way: “We confess together that all persons depend completely on the saving grace of God for their salvation. The freedom they possess in relation to persons and the things of this world is no freedom in relation to salvation” (JDDJ 19).

When Lutherans insist that a person can only receive justification, they mean, however, thereby “to exclude any possibility of contributing to one’s own justification, but do not deny that believers are fully involved personally in their faith, which is effected by God’s Word” (JDDJ 21).

When Catholics speak of preparation for grace in terms of “cooperation,” they mean thereby a “personal consent” of the human being that is “itself an effect of grace, not an action arising from innate human abilities” (JDDJ 20). Thus, they do not invalidate the common expression that sinners are “incapable of turning by themselves to God to seek deliverance, of meriting their justification before God, or of attaining salvation by their own abilities. Justification takes place solely by God’s grace” (JDDJ 19).

Since faith is understood not only as affirmative knowledge, but also as the trust of the heart that bases itself on the Word of God, it can further be said jointly: “Justification takes place ‘by grace alone’ (JD nos 15 and 16), by faith alone; the person is justified ‘apart from works’ (Rom 3:28, cf. JD no. 25)” (JDDJ, Annex 2C).

What was often torn apart and attributed to one or the other confession but not to both is now understood in an organic coherence: “When persons come by faith to share in Christ, God no longer imputes to them their sin and through the Holy Spirit effects in them an active love. These two aspects of God’s gracious action are not to be separated” (JDDJ 22).

Both this document and the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification from which it quotes find that both communions have come to affirm essentially the same view of justification. Our common commitments are weightier than our disagreements.

“In light of this consensus the remaining differences of language, theological elaboration, and emphasis in the understanding of justification are acceptable. Therefore the Lutheran and the Catholic explications of justification are in their differences open to one another and do not destroy the consensus regarding the basic truths” (JDDJ 40). “Thus the doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century, in so far as they relate to the doctrine of justification, appear in a new light: The teaching of the Lutheran churches presented in this Declaration does not fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent. The condemnations in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church presented in this Declaration” (JDDJ 41). This is a highly remarkable response to the conflicts over this doctrine that lasted for nearly half a millennium.

This morning I introduce my particular topic for the week that we will look at today and Thursday. You may have read the blurb on the Internet Monk Bulletin Board (right side of the page) and noticed that Roman Catholics and Lutherans have come together and produced a document that expresses their commitment to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in a spirit of unity.

The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation released a joint document, “From Conflict to Communion,” in Geneva on Monday, June 17. (Here is a link to the document).

The heart of its message is expressed in the following paragraph:

Lutherans and Catholics have many reasons to retell their history in new ways. They have been brought closer together through family relations, through their service to the larger world mission, and through their common resistance to tyrannies in many places. These deepened contacts have changed mutual perceptions, bringing new urgency for ecumenical dialogue and further research. The ecumenical movement has altered the orientation of the churches’ perceptions of the Reformation: ecumenical theologians have decided not to pursue their confessional self-assertions at the expense of their dialogue partners but rather to search for that which is common within the differences, even within the oppositions, and thus work toward overcoming church-dividing differences.

“From Conflict to Communion” especially highlights the progress made by Lutheran-Catholic dialogue in the past 50 years, and suggests that we live in a new era, an age that enables Lutherans and Catholics to view each other differently. The mutual condemnations that grew out of Reformation schisms should no longer form the foundation of the relationship between the churches.

The document cites four important changes that have come about:

1. The work of ecumenism in the past century.

The year 2017 will see the first centennial commemoration of the Reformation to take place during the ecumenical age. It will also mark fifty years of Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue. As part of the ecumenical movement, praying together, worshipping together, and serving their communities together have enriched Catholics and Lutherans. They also face political, social, and economic challenges together. The spirituality evident in interconfessional marriages has brought forth new insights and questions. Lutherans and Catholics have been able to reinterpret their theological traditions and practices, recognizing the influences they have had on each other. Therefore, they long to commemorate 2017 together.

2. The globalization of the church that now finds the Global South taking on new importance in the Christian world.

In the last century, Christianity has become increasingly global. There are today Christians of various confessions throughout the whole world; the number of Christians in the South is growing, while the number of Christians in the North is shrinking. The churches of the South are continually assuming a greater importance within worldwide Christianity. These churches do not easily see the confessional conflicts of the sixteenth century as their own conflicts, even if they are connected to the churches of Europe and North America through various Christian world communions and share with them a common doctrinal basis. With regard to the year 2017, it will be very important to take seriously the contributions, questions, and perspectives of these churches.

3. The secularization of the world context in which Christian communities live and witness.

While the previous Reformation anniversaries took place in confessionally homogenous lands, or lands at least where a majority of the population was Christian, today Christians live worldwide in multi-religious environments. This pluralism poses a new challenge for ecumenism, making ecumenism not superfluous but, on the contrary, all the more urgent, since the animosity of confessional oppositions harms Christian credibility. How Christians deal with differences among themselves can reveal something about their faith to people of other religions. Because the question of how to handle inner-Christian conflict is especially acute on the occasion of remembering the beginning of the Reformation, this aspect of the changed situation deserves special attention in our reflections on the year 2017.

4. The contributions of 20th-21st century historical research.

Research has contributed much to changing the perception of the past in a number of ways. In the case of the Reformation, these include the Protestant as well as the Catholic accounts of church history, which have been able to correct previous confessional depictions of history through strict methodological guidelines and reflection on the conditions of their own points of view and presuppositions. On the Catholic side that applies especially to the newer research on Luther and Reformation and, on the Protestant side, to an altered picture of medieval theology and to a broader and more differentiated treatment of the late Middle Ages. In current depictions of the Reformation period, there is also new attention to a vast number of non-theological factors – political, economic, social, and cultural. The paradigm of “confessionalization” has made important corrections to the previous historiography of the period.

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I think sometimes we downplay the significance of statements like these, if only because they have been crafted by people we don’t know personally and because we don’t see any immediate changes resulting from them. I myself have had this attitude. However, that is one reason I want us to talk about this document this week.

If “From Conflict to Communion” simply remains an official statement by a couple of big organizations, then it certainly will have minimal impact. But if we can begin discussing the ideas on the grassroots level and changing our minds about the ways in which we have been set, then perhaps some actual progress in real life Christian unity can be made. The internet seems to me a perfect environment to start this discussion, and may God grant that it go “viral!”

A further challenge to all of us — especially on a personal level — is the simple fact that people approach matters like this from two basic perspectives. Forgive the simplistic nature of this, but I have often seen demonstrated that when groups talk about “unity” or “ecumenical” matters, there is a general divide between:

• Those who look first at our differences and make those the foundation of the way we relate to each other, and
• Those who look first at our commonalities and make them the basis of our relationship.

The statement emphasizes that both groups need to alter their perspective.

Ecumenical dialogue means being converted from patterns of thought that arise from and emphasize the differences between the confessions. Instead, in dialogue the partners look first for what they have in common and only then weigh the significance of their differences. These differences, however, are not overlooked or treated casually, for ecumenical dialogue is the common search for the truth of the Christian faith.

So then, we are not so different that we cannot rejoice together in what we hold in common and try to build a relationship on that. On the other hand, our differences are important enough that we must keep talking and coming to terms with what those differences will mean for the shape of our relationship.

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This afternoon: an overview of “From Conflict to Communion.” I encourage you to read it online or download a copy to keep for further reading and consideration.