c. 1997 Religion News Service
UNDATED _ Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, stung by this summer’s defeat of a proposal for closer ties with the Episcopal Church, have tapped the Rev. Martin E. Marty, one of the denomination’s most respected figures, to head a team to draft a new proposal for bringing the two churches into”full communion”with one another.
Marty, a prolific author who is considered a national expert on religious history, is a professor of American religion at the University of Chicago.”As of today we have begun the process of developing a revised proposal for full communion with the Episcopal Church,”the Rev. Daniel F. Martensen, the ELCA’s director of ecumenical affairs said in a Nov. 26 statement.
Marty will head a three-member writing team to redraft the failed”Concordat of Agreement”hammered out in official talks over the past decade and a half by Lutheran and Episcopal theologians. Other members of the committee include the Rev. Todd W. Nichol, associate professor of church history at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., and the Rev. Michael Root, who teaches at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg,MDULFrance.
The Concordat, approved overwhelmingly by delegates to the Episcopal Church’s General Convention in July, failed _ by six votes _ to win the two-thirds vote necessary for approval at the ELCA’s Churchwide Assembly in August.
At the same time, delegates also told church leaders to continue working toward finding an acceptable means of establishing full communion between the two sacramentally-oriented mainline denominations.
Full communion would make permanent a series of links between the 2.5 million-member Episcopal Church and the 5.2 million-member ELCA, including mutual recognition of each other’s ministries and ordinations and increased possibilities for joint parishes and combined communion services.
Opposition to the pact in the ELCA came largely from Lutheran bishops and some prominent laity, including former Minnesota Gov. Al Quie, in the Midwest who object to the Episcopal Church’s understanding of the lifelong tenure of a bishop and its requirement that bishops be ordained in the apostolic succession _ the unbroken line of leadership that stretches back to the Apostles.
Martensen said that in addition to the drafting committee, a panel of advisers _ including opponents such as Quie _ has been named to advise the Marty panel.”We are attempting to consult as widely as possible and to respect the variety of concerns voiced by those opposed to the Concordat and those who affirmed it,”Martensen said.
Marty’s drafting group _ which will collaborate with three representatives of the Episcopal Church _ has the delicate task of revising the failed proposal so that it meets the Lutheran objections without further alienating Episcopalians, many of whom were saddened and angered by the Lutheran action.
The ELCA’s Church Council, its highest decision-making body between denominationwide assemblies, has asked the Marty panel to have a revised draft of the Concordat ready by spring when the ELCA’s more than 60 synods _ regional jurisdictions _ begin meeting.
Current plans call for the ELCA to vote on a new Concordat at its Churchwide Assembly in 1999 and by the Episcopal Church at its next General Convention in 2000.
ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson, in a letter expressing thanks to the drafting committee, said they were”given a big job and a relatively short time to complete it.”
END ANDERSON