Biblical Scholars Find Wide Agreement on Message of Justification
DURBAN, South Africa/GENEVA, 22 August 2011 (LWI) – The fulfillment of a promise made at the signing of the historic Lutheran-Roman Catholic ecumenical agreement 12 years ago was celebrated by representatives of four Christian traditions at a global conference in South Africa.
When The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) signed the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) in 1999, they committed themselves to “continued and deepened study of the biblical foundations of the doctrine of justification.” At the 4-8 August World Methodist Conference in Durban, Rev. Dr Theodor Dieter, representing the LWF, presented to the World Methodist Council (WMC) General Secretary Rev. Dr George H. Freeman a report titled The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine of Justification.
The report is the result of a collaborative study process begun in 2008 by a task force of Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed and Roman Catholic biblical scholars and systematic theologians appointed by the LWF, WMC, World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) and the PCPCU.
“What we have experienced was not only an exchange of ideas but an exchange of gifts,” said Prof. Dieter, director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France. He noted that the significance of the promise for deepened study had grown since both Methodist and Reformed participants also were involved in the project.
Inclusion of Reformed members was an obvious expansion, since they had participated in theological debates about justification from the beginning. Methodists were included because they affirmed the JDDJ at the 2006 WMC Conference in Seoul, South Korea.
As Dieter said of the Methodists’ role, “It demonstrates that what began as an agreement between two partners earlier in conflict with each other can be expanded to other partners who had not been part of the initial dispute – and then these new partners can find their own significant contributions to the future relations among the churches.”
Dieter explained that in order to respond to criticisms made of the biblical sections of the JDDJ, the task force was composed of both Old and New Testament scholars from the four church families, as well as systematic theologians. The group was asked to look at themes related to justification in the entire Bible, not only in the New Testament; in the entire New Testament, not only in the Pauline letters, and at contemporary research on Paul, he added.
Dr Walter Klaiber, former bishop of the Evangelical Methodist Church in Germany, who chaired the group, said that the scholars hoped the study document “will help to deepen our common understanding of the biblical message of justification and thereby to foster our joint efforts to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of our time.”
The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine of Justification includes chapters on the relations between theological teachings and biblical interpretations – both historical and contemporary. It seeks to take full account of the diversity of Scripture and yet also to find unifying perspectives. It explains that the theology of justification offers “the deepest insight into the human condition before God” and can provide a basis for ecumenically significant theology of mission and of koinonia (church communion).
In the report’s foreword, Klaiber says he expects the study document to stimulate further discussion, “both through the consensus it presents but also through the remnants of some tensions it does not seek to conceal.”
The publication is also meant for a wider audience beyond biblical scholars and theologians, as jointly underlined in its introduction by the LWF and WCRC General Secretaries Rev. Martin Junge and Rev. Dr Setri Nyomi, WMC’s Freeman and PCPCU Secretary Bishop Dr Brian Farrell. The task force has “provided here a text which is accessible to many attentive readers who care about Christian confession of God’s grace and about the unity of the Church,” they state. (680 words)
Request a copy of The Biblical Foundations of the Doctrine of Justification
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- LWF Conference on the Protestant Understanding of Church in an Ecumenical Horizon
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- Lutherans Actively Engage in World Mission Conference
- Lutheran-Reformed Dialogue Group Agrees to Further Study on Understanding of Church
- Further Actions on Ecumenical Affairs
- International Seminar Looks at “Fruits and Challenges of Ecumenical Dialogue”
- View photos of the Council 2011 meeting
