The “we” of the title refers, of course, to the Episcopal Church. When our 73rd General Convention meets in Denver this July it will have two resolutions of major ecumenical significance to consider. In reverse order, the second resolution from the Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (SCER) is simply the “second reading”–required of any constitutional change–of the 72nd General Convention’s passage by an overwhelming majority of a suspension in the operation of a provision in the BCP’s preface to the ordinal. After more than thirty years of dialogue, this temporary suspension will finally allow us immediately to remove the last obstacle to inaugurating a relationship of full communion between our church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA). In other words, if the resolution passes its second reading, then the ordained ministries of ECUSA and ELCA on the level of pastor/priest will be instantly reconciled and a process begun whereby the respective episcopal ministries of the two churches will be ultimately reconciled over time. But it will make absolutely no sense for our General Convention even to consider this second resolution if a logically prior one does not pass. This resolution states that the document entitled Called to Common Mission (CCM) provides the theological and ecclesiological basis upon which the Episcopal Church can enter into full communion with the ELCA. Attached to the SCER resolution is an explanation that claims the “agreements in faith, sacraments, and ministry” in CCM Called to Common Mission: Are We? are “substantially the same as in the Concordat of Agreement.” It will be remembered that the General Convention of 1997 received and passed the Concordat, but that two weeks later ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly failed such coordinate passage just six votes short of the required two-thirds majority. And thereby hangs a tale.
Before proceeding, it may be well for me to reveal my own answer to the question that begins this article. It is a categorical “Yes!” The Episcopal Church should receive CCM, the full title of which is “Called to Common Mission: A Lutheran Proposal for a Revision of the Concordat of Agreement,” so that the relationship of full communion between ECUSA and ELCA can be established without further delay. Reasons for my confidence and hope in this regard will appear as the discussion proceeds.
Lutheran difficulties
The aftershock of the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly failure by such a narrow margin to adopt the Concordat in 1997 was precisely that its vigorous and vocal Lutheran opponents were stunned at the size of the all but twothirds majority favoring the proposal. At issue for them was the ELCA’s willingness to accept the historic episcopate over time through the relationship of full communion that would have been established with ECUSA. Still other Lutherans had reservations about the provision of the Concordat which specified that the threefold pattern of ordained ministry (bishops, priests, deacons) would be the eventual pattern for the ordained ministries of both churches. Veterans of the three series of Lutheran- Episcopal Dialogues (LED) from 1969 to 1991 knew all too well that these were sensitive points. For those who wished to make the most of that sensitivity, the Concordat (itself only nine printed pages in length) appeared totally focused on matters of polity and ordained ministry. All the supporting and background documents and ecclesial agreements over nearly three decades of conversation and action were not immediately visible as the doctrinal and liturgical underpinning of the matters of polity and ministry that needed to be mutually addressed in order to remove the last obstacles to full communion.
The rallying cry against the Concordat was “No historic episcopate!” The fine point of the dialogue and the resulting Concordat that finally had broken through the traditional impasse between Lutherans and Anglicans was altogether missed. It is relatively easy to state but takes a longer time to appreciate. In previous actions and agreements everything but the mutual interchangeability of ordained ministries had been adopted. Anglicans, for their part, found a way to make that possible without insisting on historic episcopate as a precondition to full communion. Lutherans, for their part, found themselves free to receive historic episcopate precisely because no precondition was required. Mutual recognition of ordained ministries was based on agreements about the implications of the Gospel in regard to the nature of the Church and the economy of salvation.
For the ELCA, however, the fact remained after the 1997 Churchwide Assembly that the Concordat had not passed and a substantial minority of their church remained distressed. While pledging a renewed effort toward full communion with ECUSA, a way was sought to meet the internal concerns. A principle at work for the Lutherans–and one that should find congenial ground among Anglicans– was to find a middle term between what is absolutely essential in the relation of the Gospel to the Church and what is utterly adiaphora (a matter of indifference). Such a middle term is that which is normative.
From Concordat to CCM
In the relatively short time between biennial assemblies, representatives officially appointed by the Episcopal Church (Bishop Christopher Epting of Iowa, SCER; Dr. William Norgren, sometime Ecumenical Officer; Dr. J. Robert Wright, Consultant to the Ecumenical Office; and Canon David Perry, Presiding Bishop’s Deputy for Ecumenical Affairs) met with ELCA theologians and ecumenists who represented the spectrum of opinion on the Concordat. A finely crafted document emerged from their conjoint deliberation. It aimed at a clearer text without footnotes and a sequencing of materials that “begins with a description of the relationship of full communion, followed by agreements on faith and ministry, moves to actions of each church to bring them into full communion, and ends with actions of both churches in full communion.”
What changes occurred in the process that are of principal interest to Episcopalians? First, the historic episcopate will become a feature of the ELCA principally through sources available within the wider Lutheran World Fellowship (though, to be sure, a bishop of the Episcopal Church will be invited to participate fully in the prayer and laying-on-of-hands at liturgies where synodical bishops are consecrated/ installed). This is chiefly a change in the manner of implementing historic episcopate within ELCA over time. Ironically, this possibility was suggested in the course of LED II and again in LED III, but was rejected by the Lutheran representatives at that time. Now, reassuringly, it seems to have won the day from their side.
Readers of Open will be less happy with the fact that the mutual pledge to a future pattern of threefold ministry in both the ELCA and ECUSA was altered in the change from the Concordat to CCM. One of the matters left for future decision when ELCA was formed from its predecessor bodies was the question of whether the diaconate/diaconal ministries were within the “one ordained ministry.” For reasons largely unrelated to the general and worldwide Lutheran commitment to the importance of such ministries, it was subsequently determined by the ELCA that diaconal ministers were not to be regarded as ordained to the pastoral ministry that is shared by bishops and presbyters. While this may be a disappointment to those of us who support a distinctive diaconate, it should be remembered that there is a deep Lutheran fidelity to diaconal ministries. The change leaves room for growth in practice of diakonia through mutual consultation within a future relationship of full communion between ELCA and ECUSA. In any case, the question about the place of diaconate in the life and mission of the Church does not have “church-dividing issue” status.
With such contextualizations in regard to faith, sacraments, and ministry, and the changes indicated, CCM emerged and was submitted to a process of reception– including definitive clarifications by ELCA’s Conference of Bishops–before the 1999 Denver Churchwide Assembly. There it received further debate and the approbation of passing by virtually a 70% majority (716-317). What appears operative in overcoming the difficulties has been the principle of normativity, mentioned above as the middle term been the “essential” and the “indifferent.” This concept has made it possible, on the one hand, for the ELCA to freely accept the historic episcopate and, on the other hand, for the Episcopal Church not to insist upon it as a precondition of unity.
Back to the future–an opinion
My assessment of these events and the documents as a veteran of the dialogue since 1978 and a present member of the Anglican- Lutheran International Working Group, but as an outsider to the process leading from Concordat to CCM, leads me to agree with the SCER’s claim that the latter is “substantially the same.” It is, therefore, worthy to be received and passed as such by the 73rd General Convention meeting in Denver this summer. This would mean also that we could pass immediately then to a positive vote on the second reading of our constitutional change, viz., the temporary suspension of the operation of a particular provision in the BCP’s preface to the ordinal. It will be remembered that we are undertaking such a suspension so that ultimately its normativity may be mutually established. The principle works for us as well.
Yet even as I write this article, there are those within the ELCA who are passionately devoted to nullifying the implementation of the commitment made by their church to the ecumenical breakthrough that full communion between Anglicans and Lutherans represents. The newly constituted WordAlone Network, for instance, is calling for constitutional changes in ELCA that would provide for, among other things, a “non-geographical synod” (sound familiar?) and a “conscience clause” (another dread phrase from ECUSA history!) for those who simply cannot accept the “tyranny of historic episcopate.” Unfortunately, this group and their fellow travelers do not balk in their scare tactics at telling lies about the Episcopal Church and warning of dire damage to the “pure Gospel” should Lutherans enter into full communion with Anglicans.
Since the ball is in our court, as it were, the question becomes: “Should the Episcopal Church receive CCM, but in view of such turmoil in ELCA, take a ‘wait and see’ attitude by postponing action at our General Convention?” By no means! Experience has revealed that this vocalbut- vociferous minority in ELCA will not be placated in any case. By their lights, the ELCA has apostasized at least three times already: first by even considering full communion with the Episcopal Church, then by the Churchwide Assembly’s 66% vote for it in 1997, and finally, by the 70% vote for CCM in 1999. Will they then leave the ELCA? Though some Lutherans might wish that they would, I think not. For the ELCA provides an ecclesial framework, however apostasized from their point of view, within which they can continue as a protest movement. Were such as the WordAlone people to leave the ELCA they would instantly find themselves in need of forming a church. And, ironically, the setting of a normative polity would provide one of the first orders of business–something, in other words, beyond the WordAlone as they conceive it. Much easier to stay and be unhappy but, thereby, purely self-justified.
In the final analysis, nevertheless, this is a matter of primary consideration for the leadership of the ELCA. Our General Convention and the Episcopal Church are faced at the present moment only with the challenge to accept Called to Common Mission. Then we may move with our Lutheran brothers and sisters toward a greater appreciation of how we may in full communion together serve the Gospel of reconciliation in Jesus Christ.