Posted on 08/21/2013 5:11:36 PM PDT by ebb tide
WASHINGTON — Although Martin Luther likely simply sent his Ninety-Five Theses — his harsh critique of contemporary Catholicism — to the local archbishop instead of dramatically nailing them to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, the event is commonly regarded as marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
A new document, “From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017,” has been released to pave the way for joint observances of Luther’s action by both Lutherans and Catholics, a development that certainly could not have been foreseen in previous centuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
This is nothing new. They’ve been talking like this for a generation. Nothing will ever come of it unless the Lutherans put themselves under the authority of the Pope.
just erase history
A sign that the Holy Spirit is at work to bring the Christians back together as Jesus prayed that all His followers will be one.
Luther was of the Other
The true church of believers transcends current religious groups and denominations. And it always will because THAT is the true unity of believers Christ wants.
Unless the Roman Catholics become Lutherans, I don’t see anything “coming back together” in anyone’s future.
But still it cannot hurt to have greater respect and support in this age of growing anti-Christian hatred.
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I disagree. Rome has dropped all pretenses of trying to convert people to Catholicism. Otherwise, no true Catholic (only my opinion) would talk about “communion” with Lutherans.
They’ve been doing dialogs and meetings together for fifty years.
Local churches have had their pastors and priests have periodic meet and greets and breakfasts once a month, kind of things forever.
It’s like people think denominations live in vacuums. They don’t and everyone in the real world knows that. All the priests and pastors know about all the others in their cities and areas, and they are all mostly civil if not more so.
But to try to twist out of this cordiality, some kindof getting together in terms of beliefs, unless one side is going to cave completely, that just is not going to happen.
You’re instead going to be left with some common-core, sloppy agape, false unity crap that is rightly going to appeal to no one who cares about actual doctrinal truth. But I am sure they’ll have a hell of a praise band whooping up the place.
And if you exclude ELCA, the other Lutheran bodies actually make sure people have a proper understanding of communion, or they ask the person to refrain from taking it.
As I have said on a gazillion threads, what unites us is far greater than what divides us.
I’m a staunch 5-point Calvinist. I also recognize that there are plenty of Catholics who love Jesus and want to serve Him as best they can. There are also plenty of cultural “Catholics” whose faith is completely nonexistent. The very same can be said of Protestants - plenty who love Jesus, plenty who are Christians in name only.
The divides between Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic are nothing more than family squabbles.
no you need to study Catholicism to understand what you are talking about. Also Judaism
Good point. And is the Catholic Church talking about “communion” with all Lutheran bodies or just a few of them? If the latter, which bodies?
I think they’ve been discussing stuff with a couple different lutheran church bodies in Europe.
Not in America. ELCA is too far left. and LCMS and WELS are never ever going to consider any kind of doctrinal bonding, much less integrate back into, the RCC.
Common heritage - like, ummm, Yashua???
IF you spend time to research the doctrinal differences they are not just “family squabbles”. People that don’t take the time to understand that, throw platitudes and dismiss real theological divides as nothing big at all.
wow..think of the political implications...this might work out well.
I lived in a small town central New York all of the Churches got together for community outreach. Each of them took a separate area and made that the focus of their ministry so to reduce/ eliminate duplication of effort. All of them participated except for one of the Baptist groups. The Lutherans did the food pantry, two of the other Baptists took care of the clothing/ household items/ etc...
Both the Catholics took care of the Holiday outreach. The best was there was no sheep poaching.
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