already encouraged people to read Luther’s writings. “In remembering together the Reformation, Luther- ans and Catholic Christians understand their baptism as binding them to one another as members of the body of Christ,” said a communiqué issued in July from par- ticipants of the international Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue. Noting the progress in 50 years of the dialogue, the communiqué said there could be a “celebration,” but not of the dark side of the Reformation. “Catholics and Lutherans can celebrate the already achieved communion which is greater than the remaining divisions between them,” it said. Visiting Rome in 2010, Munib Younan, LWF president and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, invited Pope Benedict XVI to the Reformation observance. “We intend our anniversary to be ecumenically accountable,” Younan said. The German- born pope’s visit to Germany in 2011 included stops at sites connected with Luther and the Reformation, and the pope took part in an ecumenical service at the monastery in Erfurt where Luther studied.
McCoid said he is encouraged by statements from Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Agreements on baptism, expressed years ago in the ecumenical dialogue, could
IMG, CASTLE CHURCH IN LUTHERSTADT WITTENBERG, BADER, M.
The Luther Decade Commemoration of the Reformation anniversary is already under way in Europe through the “Luther Decade” declared in Germany. Each year stresses a different aspect of the Reformation era. 2008: Opening of the Luther Decade 2009: Reformation and Confession 2010: Reformation and Education 2011: Reformation and Freedom 2012: Reformation and Music 2013: Reformation and Tolerance 2014: Reformation and Politics 2015: Reformation—Visual Arts and the Bible 2016: Reformation and the One World 2017: Anniversary of the Reformation
lead to a form of “church communion,” which is not “full communion” but a unity that could even approve joint cel- ebrations of communion, he said.
The Reformation anniversary is also expected to foster a series of scholarly programs such as the interna- tional conference this fall at the Gordon College Center for Christian Studies in Wenham, Mass. That meeting will result in a book on the Reformation and another on “Scripture alone,” another key theme of Luther. The LWF will hold its international assembly in 2017 at a site still to be chosen. It has already declared that the observance will stress the global perspective of the Refor- mation and not just focus on Europe and Lutherans. It will also be sensitive to ecumenical concerns and stress the need for churches to be constantly “in reformation.” Both the ELCA and the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod will set their official observances next year at their national conventions.
While the Reformation observance is spiritual, there will be a physical result in Luther’s city. The “Luther Garden” in Wittenberg is a project begun several years ago that will plant 500 trees, gifts from Lutheran churches worldwide, in the German city and 500 trees in other parts of the world to represent the gospel going out from the Reformation into all nations.
Public references to the observance will increase in the years leading up to 2017, say those closest to the plan- ning. And while Luther’s actions 500 years ago led to a split in the church (not his intention), Kasch believes that in the observance people will discover the “power of the theological insights” of those times and be “led to fruitful cooperation between churches today.”
Reformation websites
• The Luther Decade:
www.visit-
luther.com/the-lutherdecade/the- lutherdecade.html • The Lutheran World Federation:
www.lutheranworld.org
• Lutherstadt Wittenberg (in Ger- man):
www.wittenberg.de • German Tourist Bureau, Luther 2017 (in English):
www.germany. travel/en/specials/spiritual-travel/ martin-luther/
martin-luther.html • From Conflict to Communion:
International Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue:
www.lutheranworld. org/lwf/
index.php/from-conflict-
to-communion.html • ELCA ecumenical and interreli- gious affairs:
www.elca.org/ecumenical.
October 2012 29
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