With the 500th Anniversary of
the Reformation in 2017 you can bet your communion card there will be some sort
of publicly displayed Roman Catholic-Lutheran solidarity. There will
be press releases latent with language of communion and forgiveness; there will
be services held with both Lutheran and Roman Catholic clergy; there will be
talk of Vatican II, Ecumenism, and the Joint Declaration on the doctrine of Justification.
Moreover, there will also be talk of Unionism, Syncretism, Heresy, and the
complete abomination of the Gospel as if nothing has changed in 500
years. And lastly, the word "Pastoral" will be used so often that it
will eventually become meaningless. So, how then, are we to make sense of all this?
Lets start with a bit of History and a few definitions of terms. In Lutheranism the terms Unionism and Syncretism hold both theological and cultural significance. If one is to consult the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod's Constitution and its documentation on how to interpret that constitution, it seems that the German from which the concepts have been derived is ambiguous. In sifting through footnote after footnote there does not exist a single definition in any lexicon of the German language the words kirchenmengerei or glaubensmengerei with no usage of them until the 19th century in any German colloquialism or Church context. And, the word roots from which the terms have been theorized to have been derived from, do not necessarily point to any clear definitions. It is by context that these terms approximately mean "mixing the faiths". Moreover, the use of unionismus and syncretismus, having Greek origins, were only used with same context and timeframe, with the exception of syncretismus, which was used in the time of the Reformation when referring to worship with Roman Catholics and other Protestants, like the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists. Therefore, in looking to the 19th Century and the monarchy of King Frederich William III (who was a Calvinist), we see a period of secular consolidation of religious institutions into the Prussian Union of Churches. By 1817 across Prussian territories there were the merging of Church bodies, which shared very different Theologies. Consequently, William's decrees precipitated the next 100 years of German immigration to the United States by those who sought freedom from merging their beliefs, including and specifically, Lutherans. What we see in the United States were the clear definitions put forth by C.F.W. Walther in the 1840's pertaining to heterodox views, which not only included commentary on non-Lutheran doctrines, but also the growing Kantian-Schleiermacherian views on religion in general (In another blog I will treat thoroughly what I mean by Kantian-Schleiermacherian). So, then what do these terms mean? So, in their essence, both terms relate to heterodox or completely different beliefs, which have application with other Christians and non-Christians alike. As the Prussian Union of Churches shows, Unionism applies to engagement (worshiping, taking Communions, mixing doctrines, etc.) with other Christians outside of Lutheranism. Whereas, syncretism, at least in the modern sense, is similar to Unionism yet applies to non-Christians and religions outside of Christianity. Keep in mind that in the Reformation era a Sacramentarian or Anabaptist was not seen as a Christian. One of the most clear examples of syncretism was the condemnation of LCMS Pastor Rob Morris by President Rev. Harrison for involvement in the interfaith service after the tragedy in Newtown, CT. (On a side note Marc Santora is a hack, unsophisticated, ignorant moron. If you read the article, you would think that because the ELCA is bigger and more liberal, it is somehow more fashionable. After all size matters, we all know that. This topic demands someone critically astute and careful enough for the nuance and emotion that a topic of this type and scale demands. You will not find a person of this caliber amongst the sycophants at The New York Times.)
Called by the now Saint John the XXIII, the Second Vatican Council considered by Roman Catholics to be the 21st Ecumenical Council was an effort to evaluate the relationship between the Church and the modern world, convening for the first time in 1962. Understood by many as a liberal movement within the Roman Catholic Church for numerous reasons, including the fact there were no anathemas or new doctrines to interpret; but, rather, there were sweeping changes to many core components of Catholic life. In addition, there were additional efforts to build relationships with schismatic denominations such as the Anglican Communion, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and many Lutheran bodies which generations earlier would have been unheard of. Precipitated by such movements as the Nouvelle Theologie, which included Theologians such as Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Karl Rahner, Jean Danielou, and yes, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) seeing Vatican II as merely liberal is vacuous. In later years after the Council's close in 1965 there emerged two interpretations of the Council. Led by Rahner and Congar, Concillium, a “liberal” journal emerged as the voice that is most commonly associated with the Council. However, in 1972, led by de Lubac, Balthasar and Ratzinger, Communio a more “conservative” journal emerged to challenge the Concillium group. Communio sought to re-interpret the sacredness of Roman Catholic tradition in light of modern conceptual grammar. The difference here is critical in that affirming tradition in new grammar is not necessarily new tradition. This includes Gaudium et Spes and Dei Verbum which sought to affirm the Biblical basis of Roman Catholic practices and doctrines within the interpretive framework of patristic and medieval hermeneutics.
Ecumenism
Conclusion
