Mathew (one “t”) Block, the communications manager for the Lutheran Church Canada (with which the LCMS is in fellowship) has an interesting post at First Things on the 50 years of Lutheran-Catholic dialogue. He does so from the perspective of the International Lutheran Council (ILC), the organization of conservative Lutherans, which has started a dialogue with Rome of its own, clarifying how the liberal Lutheran World Federation is not fully representing the Lutheran tradition in its own talks, and how ILC churches agree with Rome (and not the LWF) in not ordaining women and rejecting same-sex marriage.
Beyond the Lutheran/Catholic issues, the post sheds light on world Lutheranism in the relationship between the ILC and the LWF. For example, I learned that not only Ethiopia’s 7.2 million member Mekane Yesus (“place of Jesus”) is pulling away from the LWF and is trying to get its theological act together with the help of the ILC, so is Tanzania’s 6.5 million member Lutheran Church.
From Mathew Block, 50 Years of Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue | Mathew Block | First Things:
Acting as it does as a summary and analysis of five decades of Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, 2015’s Declaration on the Way: Church, Ministry, and Eucharist will undoubtedly be a helpful touchstone in future ecumenical discussions between the two traditions. For that reason, the representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Bishop’s Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) who authored the work are to be commended. The document is worthy of careful reading.
Of course, it is also important to note that the synthesis presented here represents an understanding of Lutheranism not necessarily shared by all churches who claim the name. The Lutheran side of these dialogues has been primarily represented by churches of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). Other Lutheran churches, like those represented by the International Lutheran Council (ILC), may not agree in every respect with the Lutheran position as presented in these past dialogues, even as they praise other elements of the discussions.
Compared to the LWF, the ILC is relatively small: including affiliate member churches, its official membership is somewhere around 3.25 million members. That said, the number of church bodies interested in joining the ILC is growing. At its 2015 world conference, three new church bodies (in Russia, Norway, and Nicaragua) were welcomed into membership, and there are a number of others at in the process of applying. Still others sympathize with the positions of the ILC and attend their conferences, but are not currently looking to become full members. Even a number of theologically-conservative LWF churches are increasingly friendly with the ILC and its member churches (the most recent world conference, for example, welcomed representatives from the 7.2 million member Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus and the 6.5 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, among other guests).
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