Before you blast me for posting another religion thread, this one actually has a well, somewhat worthwhile question that hasn’t been asked 500 times before.
I’ve been raised LCMS (for you acronym declined bafoons, that Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) since I was just a wee lad. After 9 years of LCMS grade school and 4 years Catholic High School I realized a few things. 1)Martin Luther bitched about the Catholics till they kicked him out 2)Lutherans and Catholics don’t get along 3)I don’t care for Christianity much anymore
What these three things lead up to is a little thing I noticed after being dragged to church on x-mas. A article was writen on the possibility of a merger of faiths between Catholics and Lutherans. I found myself in awe after reading it. Some people where actually thinking this could work. I, having my eyes opened to a God who couldn’t give a shit about us, thought of it as funny. It could never happen. At least if it did happen, it wouldn’t change my stance on who’d right in the religion debate. There are a few things that must happen before my parents would join the new merger of religions. 1)The Pope would have to be taken out of the picture, indefnitely. 2)Mary would have to be treated as a sinner, before and after she gave birth to Jesus and 3)its not gonna happen anyways, so why bother wasting space?
I’m curious to find out if any of the bouards new found religous nuts would like to comment on this. Any Lutherans see this as a possibility in the future? Any Catholics see it as a possibility?
“People must think it must be fun to be a super genuis,
But they don’t realize how hard it is
to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
– Calvin and Hobbes
(__) /
The Anglican Communion and the Lutheran churches have been having similar discussions for some years, and although progress has been made, re-union is nowhere on the horizon. And that’s two groups that don’t have the stumbling block of the Bishop of Rome to deal with.
As I understand it, the Lutheran and the RC theologians have issued a joint statement that tries to deal with the Faith/Works issue that ol’Martin started up. I hadn’t heard that they had gone on to consider re-union discussions.
As jti correctly suggests, the agreement reached between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches relates only to the doctrine of salvation via faith vs. salvation via works.
Unification of Christian faiths has been a goal of Pope John Paul II – but there is a long road ahead. My opinion is that full unification will not happen any time soon - that is to say, within the next two generations. There are simply too many contentious issues – apostolic succession and the sacraments, just to name two. I cannot imagine the Catholic Church ever retreating from the position that the Roman Pontiff is the Successor to Peter and has supreme authority over the church on earth – equally, it is difficult to imagine Lutherans accepting that premise. Moreover, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist would undoubtedly be a sticking point.
This question solicits opinions, not fact; what I have offered is only mine.
The LCMS did not sign off on the accord. I heard an interview with one of their spokesmen who made it quite clear that church had significant differences in interpreting the doctrine of justification.
As far as the greater question of realignment, a lot depends on the denominations in question. It seems the liberal Christian denominations are actively pursuing mergers, joint declarations and the like, while the more conservative (fundamental,if you like)groups are finding new areas to disagree on bitterly.
As far as Roman Catholics and any other group, there is that whole Pope thing to get through.
The whole “pope thing” may not be as big a deal as some people would make it. If we alter the premise from
“We will be one big happy family in the same organization”
to
“We will work to understand each other’s positions and stop calling the other guy ‘heretic’ all the time”
then we may come a lot closer regardless of the papacy. Th RCC is already simply the (enormously) biggest member of a whole group of Catholic churches. We RCC types generally like to point out that the Maronites, Chaldean Rite Catholics, Greek Catholics and the others ultimately acknowledge the pope as head of the church. However, when you wander into any of the non-Roman branches, you won’t find very much in the way of day-to-day acknowledgement of the papacy.
If we remove that one step, we get back to a position of the pope as “first among equals” with a certain amount of respect for having the most troops, but without any demands that any of his “equals” have to defer to him.
There will never be complete unanimity within Christianity again. Too much theology has been developed to approach an understanding of God that is mutually exclusive. What we can do is try to stop pronouncing “You’re going to hell because you don’t accept our specific interpretation of the book of Lazarus, Chapter 13, Verse 666.”
The Catholic Church has entered into agreements similar to the one in the OP or has made joint statements of an intent to explore common ground with such diverse groups as the Church of England and the Southern Baptists.
As opposed to murdering each other in Jesus’s Name, I think it’s something that God would want us to do.
Both sides have apologized to each other for the roles they played in the original break-up.
Both sides have stopped condemning each other (to hell) and now recognize each other as members of Christ’s body, albeit a divided body.
Both sides recognize that the division is wrong, evil, and a scandal. Both side claim they want unity.
On certain topics that have been divisive (such as justification), there is now enough agreement that any differences are insignificant.
Of course, new developments since the time of the Reformation have entered the picture which make unification difficult: Papal infallibility; Reformed female priests; the new schism of fundamentalist v. non-fundamentalist Christianity.
Some thorny issues can be theologically sidestepped by seeking a common statement that both sides can accept but politely disagree with personal interpretation.
E.g., with the sinlessness of Mary, the Catholic position on Immaculate Conception can be recast to say that Mary was saved from sin since her conception. This would satisfy Lutheran sensibilities that Mary was in need of salvation and Catholic sensibilities that Mary was perpetually pure. Sometimes it’s better not to be too specific with dogmatic proclamations.
The same with Papal authority. Theologians on both sides tentatively speculate on preserving the ministry of Peter in an institutional form that is, shall we say, less monarchical than what it currently is.
Women’s ordination. That’s the real stumbling block. It’s going to take a new Pope accepting this to make unification possible.