The Post-Ecumenical Situation

By John Hoyum

Some History

As I wrote about in a recent issue of Logia in their Forum section – a free conference in print, as they call it – one of the most interesting developments in the church history of the present century is the near-complete collapse of the ecumenical movement. In many ways this parallels the decline of the post-Cold War world order once famously described as the “end of history” by Francis Fukuyama. Likewise, declining trust in large institutions is indicative of how we inhabit an age of suspicion, decentralization, and deconstruction (for lack of a better word). Mainline Protestant denominations embraced the model of vertically integrated management to organize national church bodies, seminaries, and mission organizations.

The pan-Protestant ecumenical movement in the United States reached its apex in the 1990s with the aggressive agenda for full communion pursued by the ELCA. This was built off the earlier work which put together the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) in 1948, which imposed intercommunion between Lutherans, Reformed, and Union Christians throughout the whole of Germany. This expanded in 1973 with the Leuenberg Concord to create a pan-Protestant communion throughout Europe. Historical disputes about the Lord’s Supper, the doctrine of election, and Christology having been set aside, the way was open for Protestant unity – apparently.

In the United States, the preoccupation had been, since the nineteenth-century, the question of Lutheran unity. The legacy of merger between the ethnic and regional synods dates back to the time of Walther, Krauth, and Grabau. But it was not until after the Second World War that American Lutheranism entered a truly post-ethnic era. With the creation of the American Lutheran Church (TALC) in 1960, German, Danish, and Norwegian Lutherans merged together in a moderately conservative church body. (They would go on to absorb much of the Lutheran Free Church in 1963). In 1962, the formation of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) would bring together many of the remaining Lutherans of German, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, and Icelandic heritage. The remaining churches at the time were the various pietistic groups, like the Lutheran Brethren, and the churches of the recently-collapsed Synodical Conference, like the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods (LCMS and WELS).

Once TALC and the LCA got together with the LCMS dissidents of the AELC, the way was open for the pan-Protestant ecumenical agenda. One of the interesting factors that it’s hard not to speculate about is that in 1988 with the creation of the ELCA, you have the first time where American Lutherans actually have a “mainline” church body. Of course, Franklin Clark Fry (president of the United Lutheran Church in America and, later, the LCA) appeared on the cover of Time in 1958, and was often referred to as “Mr. Protestant.”

I often like to say that Lutheranism in America isn’t defined exclusively through a left-right, mainline versus fundamentalist axis like American Presbyterianism is. Ethnic and cultural distinctions are almost as important as disagreements over theology. This might sound odd, but there is a reason that both liberal and theologically conservative movements emerged in most of the major Lutheran denominations at midcentury. The historical critical method was taught at Concordia Seminary from the late 1940s until the mid 1970s. Though overshadowed by the Seminex controversy, elements of TALC resisted the shift toward theological liberalism during this same period by defending, for example, biblical inerrancy.

But it really is with the formation of the ELCA that a truly mainline Lutheran denomination finally came into existence. Its conservative constituencies hoped for a broad acceptance of historical Christian orthodoxy. And many supported its ecumenical agenda in hopes that this would strengthen its commitment to orthodoxy. But if you comb through back issues of Lutheran Forum, Pro Ecclesia, or dialog from the 1990s, it was not at all clear that the ELCA’s ecumenical program had unanimous support. Evangelical catholics worried that the Formula of Agreement establishing full communion with various Reformed and Presbyterian churches would obscure the historic Lutheran understanding of Christ’s bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper. Documents like Marburg Revisited (1966) which, like their European counterparts, claimed consensus on the Lord’s Supper between Lutherans and the Reformed, had always been more welcome among the theologians of TALC than the LCA.

Conversely, it was the midwesterners of the former TALC who opposed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), while many evangelical catholics like Robert Jenson supported it. Like their German counterparts, many theologians descending from TALC saw no issue with Lutheran-Reformed intercommunion; but when it came to reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church on the doctrine of justification, then the ecumenical enthusiasm began to wear off.

I was present at the 2009 churchwide assembly of the ELCA as a “voting member.” There were items voted on that summer that made it on the national news, but that’s for another occasion. But something newsworthy from that assembly that was a total afterthought was the passage of Confessing Our Faith Together, establishing full communion between the ELCA and the United Methodist Church. This measure was passed without controversy. By the turn of the century, human sexuality was really the only thing up for discussion in the ELCA. Even the fallout from Called to Common Mission had dissipated. But in 2009, mainline reconciliation was complete. The only two of the “Seven Sisters” not included were the American Baptists and the Disciples of Christ. (As an editorial aside, it’s interesting that infant baptism is still perceived to be church dividing, while differing views of Christ’s presence in Holy Communion aren’t).

Full communion with the UMC symbolizes just how much the ELCA had come to embody the Lutheranism of S. S. Schmucker (1799-1873) instead of that of Charles Krauth (1823-1883). Schmucker’s Lutheranism for America was premised on compromise both with Reformed views of the Lord’s Supper, but also with the kind of revivalism epitomized by Wesleyanism. With full communion established with the United Methodists, the pan-Protestant ecumenical movement reached its zenith, but no one noticed. Other matters proved more important.

The Present

Paul Hinlicky has often described the present situation as an “ecumenical winter.” This is an apt description of where things stand at the moment. JDDJ is a dead letter at this point. Though it seemed like an achievement at the time to those who wrote it and celebrated it, what has supposed consensus between the Lutheran World Federation and some representatives of the Vatican actually accomplished practically? (I put it this way because Rome doesn’t consider the Declaration an official statement of doctrine in the same way the LWF does). Furthermore, a non-zero number of its original defenders are now Roman Catholics anyway! The Vatican’s ongoing sale of indulgences should indicate that, practically speaking, nothing has changed since the Council of Trent – at least not on Rome’s side of the issue. That itself should worry us. Suspicion seems justified in thinking that it is the Lutherans, not the Roman Catholics, who have forgotten what was really at stake during the Reformation.

But like the pan-Protestant ecumenical program, all this indicates that theology has little to do with the practice of ministry in the mainline after all. Therapeutic and emancipatory models of God’s reconciliation with humanity have nothing to do with important issues like justification as the forensic imputation of Christ’s righteousness to sinners, the relation between his human and divine natures, or the manner in which Christ imparts his body and blood in the bread and wine of the Supper. I don’t find it particularly helpful to dwell upon the present state of the mainline beyond how its legacy informs the practice of ministry among those who have left it behind. I don’t care to fixate on doctrinal laxity among those to whom I am not accountable, and those who are not, in some way, accountable to me.

But the post-ecumenical situation puts the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians (ECO), and the NALC in an interesting situation. I don’t know what the NALC’s formal relationship with ECO looks like, but the NALC does enjoy a close collaboration with the ACNA. The North American Lutheran Seminary operates on the campus of Trinity School for Ministry – the ACNA seminary in Pittsburgh. The ACNA always sends its greetings to the convocation. In my own ministry, I have always found neighboring ACNA clergy the most sympathetic, alongside my colleagues in the LCMS. But to this point, the NALC has no agreements establishing full communion or altar and pulpit fellowship with any church, despite close collaboration with the ACNA. This is telling, and says something about the truly post-ecumenical moment we now inhabit.

I suppose the unanswered question posed to the NALC, put as pointedly as possible, is this: as inheritors of the ecumenical legacy of the postwar era, are we bound to the consensus ostensibly established in Marburg Revisited, the Leuenberg Concord, and A Formula of Agreement? Leaving aside the historic episcopate – which the NALC apparently considers adiaphora – these are important questions to answer. This seems to be especially true if the NALC considers itself to be in some form of limited intercommunion with orthodox Anglicans. But what kind of Anglicans? Those who hold to the resolutely Reformed explanation of Christ’s eucharistic presence articulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles? Or Anglo-Catholics who might believe in transubstantiation, but who also believe that justification is by faith formed by love working itself out through deeds of charity? Ambiguity on such matters doesn’t help anyone.

A closing anecdote might clarify what is at stake with the post-ecumenical situation in which we find ourselves. Theology is, as Gerhard Forde once wrote, for proclamation – which means that theology is for parish ministry. I’ve inherited a story from about twenty years ago that has stuck with me. Given that the Presbyterian Church (USA) was, and is, in full communion with the ELCA, that guarantees exchange of ministers. A PCUSA pastor was once upon a time interviewing with the bishop’s office of an ELCA synod concerning a vacancy. Some of the line of questioning was theological, interestingly enough. The Presbyterian was asked if an unbeliever who takes the sacrament receives the true body and blood of Christ. Of course not! was the reply. This pastor did not receive a call. For that, I suppose, we can give thanks. But it illustrates the fact that agreements amongst intellectuals and church bureaucrats rarely get to the heart of the issue – and have little to say for the practice of ministry on the level of the congregation. The manducatio impiorum, the bodily eating of the impious, has always been the sticking point between Luther and all other Protestants, and it remains the case today. It is the acid test for whether Christ is truly present, or not. Ecumenical statements might say otherwise, but they are without value if they remain in the purely theoretical realm of bureaucratic negotiation.

The current twilight of the ecumenical movement should prompt our reflection. I am at once struck with two impressions as I, myself, reflect. The first is that the ecumenical movement is now a lost cause. Little was gained, but much was lost. As with all lost causes, resurrection is the first temptation. But attempting to resurrect this movement appears now futile – despite the romantic feelings some Lutherans may feel towards it. Our era is one of re-confessionalization, retrenchment, and reaction. It is much like the nineteenth-century in that regard. One wonders – bracketing the question of truth for just a moment – if we should embrace it. The second reaction I have – thinking about all that was lost in consolidating, modernizing, and Americanizing Lutheranism over the last seventy-five years – is that important question of truth. I have, for a long time now, thought that the answer to that age-old question, now centuries old – what is Lutheranism – does not wait for us in 2008, or 1987, or even in 1959. Most likely, it’s further back than that.