Lazareth Examines Ecumenical Dialogue
Episcopal News Service. March 16, 1989 [89053]
Linda M. Logan, Editor of The East Tennessee Episcopalian
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (DPS, Mar. 15) -- The main hindrance to Christian unification is our "chaos in order." According to Dr. William Lazareth, none of the Christian Churches is in a position to take official action on the convergences in faith achieved by the theologians.
We have come "remarkably far" in ecumenical dialogue, the former World Council of Churches (WCC) official said, but it has been mostly on the level of bilateral dialogues -- conversations between just two communions at a time.
Lazareth, who is now bishop of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was in Knoxville, Tennessee, on January 29 to preach at the city-wide service of Christian unity held at First Christian Church. Before the service, he paused for an interview with The East Tennessee Episcopalian.
Lazareth was director of the Faith and Order Secretariat from 1980 to 1983. It was during that period that the Lima text of the Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (BEM) statement was published. That "agreed statement" has been recognized as the benchmark document of the ecumenical movement. At last summer's Lambeth Conference, the BEM statement was recognized as the official basis on which all dialogues between the Anglican Communion and other bodies would proceed.
The BEM statement is a summary of the faith and order of the Church, particularly as it relates to problems of mutual recognition leading to unity among the separate communions. The document deals with the main areas of theological convergence that have been achieved. It also states the issues still in need of further research and reconciliation.
The result of 50 years of study and consultation, the document was the statement of over 100 theologians representing virtually every major Church tradition, from Orthodox and Catholic to Adventist and Pentecostal. This agreed statement, the product of a 1982 meeting in Lima, Peru, of the World Council's Faith and Order Commission, was sent to the council's approximately 300 member Churches for their study and official response.
There are now more than 600,000 copies of the BEM document in circulation and seven volumes of official responses from the Churches. Those responses, Lazareth said, represent the "most formidable world-wide consideration of any doctrinal text in modern Church history." The material is being collated and evaluated by the Faith and Order Secretariat for an official response to the next assembly of the WCC, to be held in Canberra, Australia, in February of 1991.
Of the three concerns that form the basis of the paper, it is ministry that has proved to be the stumbling block in dialogues between Churches -- whether one communion regards the ordained ministry of another as valid. What the BEM statement does is ask the Churches to look at apostolic succession in the context of the transmission of the apostolic tradition. The statement asks the Churches that have maintained episcopal succession to recognize as apostolically valid those communions that maintain the apostolic traditions whether or not they have an unbroken line of bishops.
"Apostolic tradition in the Church," the BEM statement reads, "means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each."
The document continues, "The primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole."
The statement that Lazareth said is the "most decisive sentence" in the entire document is the one that says that our Lord did not institute a particular pattern of Church government. All three patterns of ordained ministry found in the Churches today -- diaconate, presbyterate, and episcopate -- are recorded in the New Testament. Each has its function, whether it be that of service or of local or regional oversight. Again, it is to the content of ministry -- rather than to its structure -- that the BEM document directs the attention of the Churches.
Working from this theological orientation, the Anglican and Lutheran dialogue has come to the point of proposed recognition of each other's ministry. The Niagara Report just issued on the international level between Anglicans and Lutherans proposes, in Lazareth's words, "the first reconciliation on apostolic succession since the Reformation, in accord with the recommendations made by BEM."
That report, published in 1988 for the Anglican Consultative Council and the Lutheran World Federation, is the report of the Anglican-Lutheran Consultation on Episcope held at Niagara Falls in September 1987.
Tracing the agreement between the two communions on the nature of the Church and the requirements for its mission, the report points out that these two traditions have not "officially engaged in any divisive theological or doctrinal controversies." Conversations and "shared work and witness" have revealed "large areas of agreement in faith and life."
"Because of all that we share," the report states, "we concur with the conclusion of the Anglican-Lutheran European Regional Commission: 'There are no longer any serious obstacles on the way towards the establishment of full communion between our two Churches.' We 'acknowledge each other as true Churches of Christ preaching the same gospel, possessing a common apostolic ministry, and celebrating authentic sacraments.'"
The report calls upon the two communions to make several changes in the matter of the installation and canonical recognition of each other's bishops. Such action, in recognizing the validity of each other's episcope or residing ministry, would result in "full communion" between the two Churches. It does not mean, the report states, the organizational merger of the Anglican and Lutheran Churches, but the creation of a "single eucharistic community," a "fully shared mission," and preparation for "what structural implications may emerge."
"It isn't down to this, yet," Lazareth said, "but for the first time Anglicans have said to non-Anglican Protestants, 'We consider you apostolically valid. You have the holy Word, you have the blessed sacraments, as do we."'
What both the BEM document and the Niagara Report do is say that there is apostolic episcope without the order of the episcopate.
This is significant in the Anglican-Lutheran dialogue because the Lutheran Church has a single order of ministry without episcopal consecration. This means, Lazareth said, that while Lutherans do have bishops, bishops are regional pastors. There is no hierarchical rank between a local leader of the eucharistic community and a regional leader.
Once Anglicans have recognized the apostolic validity of Lutheran ministry, Lazareth said, Lutherans will "confess" their "episcopal irregularity."
The Lutherans would need to say, Lazareth speculated, "We do not have apostolic succession understood in terms of monarchical episcopacy through tactile transmission of powers inherited from Peter and the apostles."
"The other side of the Niagara report," Lazareth added, "is that once you recognize our validity in terms of Word and sacrament, we will seek episcopal regularity through the good offices of your bishops, who will then co-participate in all future installations of Lutherans, as we will participate in future consecrations of Anglicans."
Insistence upon monarchical episcopacy as the "sole instrumentality of apostolic succession" is the reason similar ecumenical convergence is not coming about with the Roman and Orthodox Churches, Lazareth said.
"Roman Catholic and Orthodox scholars have co-authored this (BEM) material, but no Roman Catholic or Orthodox church has changed its canon law to make this view acceptable within their communion."
"Our convergences in faith have served to reveal our chaos in order," Lazareth concluded. "None of our churches are in positions to take official action on the convergences achieved by the theologians."
That is why, Lazareth said, the whole reception process is so important. However, the kind of "internationally coordinated response" represented in the affirmation of the BEM statement by the Lambeth Conference this summer is not possible by other Protestants, according to him, because there is no comparable body to the Anglican Lambeth Conference. "So, we're going to have to deal church to church, as it were, outside of either Rome or Canterbury or Istanbul."
Referring to the impending consecration of the Rev. Barbara Harris as Episcopal suffragan bishop of Massachusetts, Lazareth stated that women in the episcopate are not a "deleterious" issue for the Lutheran Churches. Although there are no women serving in the administrative position of bishop in the Lutheran Churches yet, with there being no hierarchical rank between a local leader of the eucharistic community and a regional leader, all the women who have received ordination within the Lutheran Church are, in Lazareth's words, "functioning as bishops already."
"Therefore, for us the consecration of Pastor Harris is not ecumenically deleterious to Christian unity. That is an obstacle only for fellow Christians who do have a view of apostolic succession in terms of the monarchical episcopacy and have never before had a female baptized Christian exercising that holy office."
Bilateral dialogues, such as the Anglican-Lutheran conversations, are where the successes are in ecumenical discussions, Lazareth said. He said they are "far outweighing in results the multilateral convergences that are allegedly being carried out by ecumenical agencies."
The National Council of Churches (NCC), which is undergoing a massive restructuring in response to an inflationadjusted loss of 53 percent of its funding over the last 13 years, needs to refocus, Lazareth said, on faith and order. According to him, the NCC should restructure in such a way, "that their alleged communion of communions is doctrinally defensive. They are now a 'national council,' but whether they are 'of churches' is radically suspect."
Lazareth said that it was because of the NCC's "preoccupation with life and work at the expense of faith and order" that it has lost its credibility with its constituents. What the NCC should undertake, according to him, is bilateral and multilateral doctrinal exchange among the constituents to give a foundation for its life- and work-oriented programs.