Introduction

The Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity worked from 2009-2018, completing two tasks: the document From Conflict to Communion (2013) for the common commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 and the present document, Baptism and Growth in Communion. The topic of the study was mandated and the members of the Commission were appointed by their churches through The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU). The members of this Commission represented Lutherans and Catholics in many diverse areas of the world, coming from Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During its years of dialogue, the Commission met in Italy (Bose), United Kingdom (Welwyn Garden City), Finland (Helsinki), Germany (Breklum, Paderborn, Regensburg), Hungary (Budapest), Italy (Bose), Japan (Kyoto), Poland (Opole), and France (Klingenthal). The Commission mourns the deaths of two of its members who passed away before the dialogue completed its work, Prof. Dr Turid Karlsen Seim and Prof. Dr Ronald F. Thiemann.

1. The Context of this Study

The context for the document Baptism and Growth in Communion was the approaching fifth centenary in 2017 of the beginning of the Reformation. After fifty years of intense Lutheran-Catholic dialogue, the commemoration of the 500th anniversary raised the question of how far Lutherans and Catholics had come in their journey towards communion and what further steps could be taken towards visible unity. The document From Conflict to Communion described jointly the history of the Reformation and discussed its theological challenges in light of fifty years of Catholic-Lutheran dialogue. In this way it prepared for the joint commemoration of the quincentennial in Lund, Sweden in 2016. The world-level official dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics began immediately after Vatican Council II and completed its fourth phase in 2006. The Commission that has now completed its work thus represents the fifth phase of this dialogue. It extends the work of the previous phases, relating especially to the Lutheran-Catholic world-level dialogue reports, The Gospel and the Church (Malta Report, 1972), The Eucharist (1978), Ways to Community (1980), The Ministry in the Church (1981), Towards a Common Understanding of the Church (1990), Church and Justification (1993), and The Apostolicity of the Church (2006). The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ, 1999), the most important basis of this current document, asked for further work on the ecclesial significance of its agreement on justification.1 Christians experience the saving grace of justification in the event of their baptism. Baptism has immediate ecclesiological significance, for one enters the church through baptism. The current study on baptism and the growth in communion it initiates aims to clarify this significance. The Apostolicity of the Church (2006) serves as the immediate context upon which the present document builds since both the mutual recognition of Lutheran and Catholic communities as churches and growth toward mutual recognition of one another’s ordained ministries requires that both the communities and their ministries visibly mediate the faith of the apostolic church. This study of apostolicity resulted in the

1 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2000), §43. Hereafter JDDJ.

affirmation, “Today we therefore mutually recognize, at a fundamental level, the presence of apostolicity in our traditions. This recognition is not negated by the important differences still to be investigated”.2

2. Baptism as the Source of Growth in Mutual Recognition

Baptism is a sacrament mutually recognized in both churches and constitutes their common basis of communion. But in the dialogues to date, the incorporation of the baptized into the one body of Christ had been more presupposed than treated explicitly as a topic of dialogue. The present proposal was to work out the shared but implicit theology of baptism among Lutherans and Catholics and to do this with an eye to their growing communion as churches. By working out a commonly held theology of baptism, the present dialogue contributes to further growth in communion in two respects. First, it demonstrates the extensive communion already existing between the two churches on the basis of a common baptism. Second, it argues for a common membership in the body of Christ by Lutheran and Catholic baptismal communities. The very possibility of Catholic and Lutheran communities being recognized as members of the one body of Christ is related to baptism insofar as it is through baptism that Lutherans and Catholics are members of the one church of Christ through sacramental incorporation into Christ’s body. Growing communion through participation in the marks or elementa of the church deepens their relationship with Christ and intensifies the communion of these communities with each other. Thus, there is a mutual interiority between the relationship of particular churches or communities with Christ, with the one church of Christ, and with each other.

3. The Method

The aim of the present study is to make more clear to our two churches the ecclesial unity which Catholics and Lutherans currently share. This is done, first, by illuminating the consequences of sharing in the body of Christ by both communities precisely as baptismal communities and, second, by showing the consequences of this sharing in terms of the mutual recognition of each other as members of the body of Christ. The second line of argument is based on mutual recognition of each other’s church and mutual acknowledgement of the other’s ministry as an instrument of the Spirit following discernment of the fruit of the Spirit in the other community. The Commission finds precedent of this discernment in the witness of the New Testament. Growth in communion results from living out the baptismal call for an intensification of a shared sacramental life and service to the world. The present document proceeds from the conviction that there is a single Body of Christ which is neither divided among communities nor a sum total of a collection of communities. Lutheran and Catholic communities believe that they belong to this one Body of Christ.

4. Outline of the Chapters

Chapter One develops the biblical witness concerning baptism and its identification as the unifying bond between Lutherans and Catholics. Chapter Two describes the reception of the biblical witness in the liturgical rite of baptism and baptism’s relationship to ministry and the Eucharist. In these two chapters the Commission develops an ecumenical theology of baptism. Chapter Three argues that not only individuals but also faith communities are members of the body of Christ. It also argues that mutual recognition follows upon discernment of the ecclesial elements and the fruit of the Spirit in the other community. Chapter Four describes how growth in communion occurs through an intensification of

2 Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity, The Apostolicity of the Church: Study Document of the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Commission on Unity [of] The Lutheran World Federation [and] Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2006), §160.

sacramental life and service to the world. Chapter Five proposes six commitments for expressing growth in communion arising from a shared baptism. The commission presents this document to our respective churches through the two mandating bodies, the LWF and the PCPCU. The commission also offers this document to the members of our churches and to the wider ecumenical movement for study and reception with the hope that it both signals the growth in communion achieved these past fifty years and leads to mutual commitments that will bring our churches closer toward the goal of full and visible communion.