April 7, 2003

CHICAGO - Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) met as the Committee on Lutheran Cooperation (CLC) April 3 here at the ELCA churchwide office and agreed to take the first steps toward regular theological conversations between the two largest Lutheran churches in the United States.

The 5.1-million member ELCA and the 2.6-million member Missouri Synod account for all but about 840,000 Lutherans in the United States. The ELCA is the product of several 20th century Lutheran church mergers, the latest in 1988; the St. Louis-based Missouri Synod was established in 1847.

The CLC has six members from each of the two church bodies, including the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, and the Rev. Gerald B. Kieschnick, LCMS president.

The ELCA entered into "full communion" with the Episcopal Church, Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and United Church of Christ. The LCMS convention in 2001 adopted a resolution that, because of those agreements, "we cannot consider them [the ELCA] to be an orthodox Lutheran church body."

The LCMS resolution continued by asking its leadership to evaluate "current cooperative pastoral working arrangements with the ELCA" and to report "results and recommendations" to its next convention in 2004.

In recent years, the CLC had reduced its schedule to one meeting a year. Hanson and Kieschnick were elected to first terms in office by their respective church bodies in 2001. In 2002 the committee decided to meet twice a year.

In conjunction with the next two CLC meetings, a teaching theologian and a parish pastor from each church will meet with four committee members from each church. The theologians and pastors are to be appointed by May 1.

The first meeting, Nov. 10 in Baltimore, will involve a presentation on the theological rationale of the LCMS resolution, as well as the resolution's standing as policy in the Missouri Synod and its implications for the church's relationship with the ELCA. ELCA representatives will have time to respond.

ELCA representatives will then present the theological rationale for their church's full-communion agreements, as well as the agreements' standing as policy in the ELCA and their implications for the church's relationship with the Missouri Synod. LCMS representatives will have time to respond.

Representatives from each church will bring to the second meeting, April 15, 2004, in St. Louis, a proposal for "nurturing relationships" with the other church. Together they will draft and approve a joint proposal for "examining relationships between our two church bodies based on a mutual understanding of our respective doctrinal positions."

"It was encouraging that we came to some agreement that we need to tend to this relationship in a more intentional way," said Hanson. "Getting into more of what that might look like is going to take some thoughtful conversation about what are the issues that tend to stand in the way of a deeper relationship," he said.

Kieschnick called the proposal for conversations between the ELCA and Missouri Synod "a natural follow-up" to the LCMS resolution. "For one church body to ascribe to another church body adjectives that are less than complimentary would not be all that we would want to do," he said.

"Let's examine relationships that exist between our church bodies, and let's do it in the context of mutual understanding of our respective doctrinal positions," said Kieschnick. "That's what you do when you have a collegial, mutual, evangelical, fraternal conversation among church leaders, pastors and theologians," he said.

Hanson recalled that the two churches held three scheduled meetings of an "ELCA-LCMS discussion panel" in 1999 and 2000 "on topics of mutual concern." He said he sensed that leaders from neither church body"felt good about how the last attempt to do this ended." He said, "We're trying to learn from that mistake."

On the part of the LCMS resolution calling for an evaluation of working arrangements with the ELCA, Hanson expressed concerns that the ELCA be involved in that process. He said, when he heard the Missouri Synod sent a survey on that subject to its "military and civilian chaplains," Hanson contacted Kieschnick and was reassured that no action would be taken without consulting the ELCA.

"Today was an honoring of that commitment," said Hanson, after Kieschnick brought preliminary feedback from the survey to the CLC meeting.

Hanson expressed a concern "that the lack of altar and pulpit fellowship not jeopardize the external cooperation we still have - Lutheran Services in America, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Disaster Response and Lutheran military chaplains."

"Frankly, most people in the world don't pay attention to whether social ministry is being provided by the Missouri Synod or ELCA, but the fact that Lutherans are the largest non-profit provider of social ministries in the United States says something about how we live out our faith as Lutherans in acts of service," Hanson said. "I don't think our internal differences should diminish that cooperative public witness and that public service we provide in this culture."

In other CLC business:

. Ruth Reko, director for social ministry organizations, ELCA Division for Church in Society, reported on Lutheran Disaster Response.

. Kathryn Wolford, president, Lutheran World Relief, Baltimore, provided a written report on that organization.

. The Rev. Lowell G. Almen, ELCA secretary, gave an overview of the agenda of and planning for the ELCA Churchwide Assembly, Aug. 11-17, in Milwaukee.

. Committee members gave updates on their church's financial situation and projections, on relations with other churches and on Lutheran congregations in need of pastors.

"It's a reminder that, whenever people from two different parts of the body of Christ get together, there's an instantaneous relationship because of the common concerns, challenges and difficulties that we face," said Kieschnick.

"We are facing the same challenges in terms of budget. We're facing the same challenges in terms of ministry, vacancies, and being vital, vibrant congregations in a very pluralistic context," said Hanson. "It didn't take long for us to begin to share that which we have in common, and we learned from each other how we are addressing those challenges within our church bodies," he said.

ELCA News Service