Episcopal Press and News
U.S. Lutherans, Episcopalians Plan Apostolicity Statement
Episcopal News Service. February 8, 1979 [79028]
Tom Dorris
Columbia, S. C. -- Lutheran and Episcopal representatives started work here on a proposed joint statement on apostolicity in the church during the sixth session of their second round of U. S. theological discussion.
The concept of "apostolic succession" has often been understood solely as the "historic episcopate," that is a visible continuity of bishops going back to Jesus' apostles.
While Anglicans around the world, including U.S. Episcopalians, have preserved and insisted on this, U.S. Lutherans have not.
A working outline presented to the group suggests a "wider definition" of Apostolicity, including "continuity" in faith, teaching, fellowship, mission, as well as ordained ministry, back to the time of the apostles.
Tentatively projected for the statement are discussions of Scriptures, creeds, confessional statements, sacraments (especially the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist), ministry (including the historic episcopate and, or generally, the ministerial function of "episcope" or oversight) and Christian service in and to the world.
The dialogue participants may also reiterate and further document reasons for a 1972 dialogue recommendation that Lutherans and Episcopalians practice "interim eucharistic fellowship" where local situations make that possible.
Last year in Michigan, three jurisdictions of Lutherans and two of Episcopalians proposed this and other forms of interchurch cooperation, after two years of discussion prompted by the 1972 report.
During their four days at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary here, the participants heard two papers on the authority of Scripture.
In the course of the discussions, representatives of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod indicated they could not recommend either limited intercommunion with Episcopalians in advance of the resolution of what the LCMS considers doctrinal differences so great as to preclude sharing the Lord's Supper.
The other Lutheran bodies represented at the dialogue are the Lutheran Church in America, American Lutheran Church and Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.
During the dialogue, Episcopalians noted that there is no consensus in Anglicanism about the doctrine of episcopacy, but also that the historic episcopate has been cherished by Anglicans as a vital symbol and means of continuity and unity, which has served the church well over the centuries.
Lutherans noted that their confessional documents have a positive view of episcopacy in principal, though it is not considered to be absolutely essential or required for the Church.
Tracing similarities in the Lutheran and Anglican Reformation, Dean John Rodgers of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pa., and Assistant Professor of History and Theology Ralph Quere of Wartburg (Lutheran) Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Ia., noted that an impulse in both "was to retain anything which has proven beneficial and is not forbidden by Scripture.... In the long run, the more radical principle of reform (i.e., that only what Scripture commands should be retained) did not find a home in Anglicanism (or Lutheranism)."
Rodgers spoke of Lutherans and Episcopalians both as "churches in the mutually schismatic body of Christ. "
In a report on the Lutheran-Episcopal dialogues he submitted to the National Ecumenical Consultation of the Episcopal Church last November, he said that "Anglicans... need to state clearly to Lutherans that we do not believe that the proper sign of the unity of the church in time and space has been given its truest and fullest expression in the realm of the church order except in the episcopate in the historic succession.
"On the other hand, it would seem equally right for us to say that where the historic succession has been retained but has failed to be faithful to that of which in itself it is an expression, as a sign of continuity in apostolic mission, apostolic teaching and apostolic fellowship in sacramental life, that such succession in order falls under judgment and is rightfully abandoned for the sake of a fuller apostolic succession until such time as it may be regained in faithfulness to the gospel. "
Work on the proposed apostolicity statement is to continue at the group's next meeting, Aug. 22-25. Papers are also planned then on proclamation, eucharistic presence and the authority of Scripture.
Members of the dialogue from the Episcopal Churchare: The Rev. John H. Rodgers, Jr., Ambridge, Pa.; the Rev. Reginald H. Fuller, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Va.; the Very Rev. J. Ogden Hoffman, Jr., Sacramento, Calif.; the Rev. Louis Weil, Nashotah House, Nashotah, Wis.; the Rev. William Petersen, Nashotah House, Nashotah, Wis.; the Rev. J. Howard M. Rhys, University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn.; Peter Day, Ecumenical Officer, Episcopal Church Center, New York, N.Y.; and Bishop William G. Weinhauer, Western North Carolina, Black Mountain, N. C.
Lutheran participants in the dialogue are: American Lutheran Church: Dr. Ralph Quere, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Ia.; Dr. Richard L. Trost, Iowa City, Ia.; and Bishop Robert L. Wietelmann, Detroit, Mich.; Lutheran Church in America: Dr. Robert J. Goeser, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif.; the Rev. Stephen Bremer, Madison, Wis.; the Rev. Frank C. Senn, Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, Ill.; Cyril Wismar, Marblehead, Mass.; and Frank W. Klos, Philadelphia, Pa.; Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod: the Rev. Carl L. Bornmann, Detroit, Mich.; the Rev. Jerald C. Joersz, St. Louis, Mo.; and Dr. Norman E. Nagel, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Ind.; and Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.: Dr. Paul D. Opsahl, New York, N.Y.