When my wife Mary, a lifelong Catholic, and I, a
lifelong Lutheran, were first considering marriage we frequently heard the
admonishment that, “Lutherans and Catholics are so alike today that there
really is very little difference between the two.” Well-meaning family and
friends were trying to emphasize our similarities and make light of our
differences to provide us some comfort in the decision we had made to spend the
rest of our lives together. Yet, I asked myself, if the two are
so similar, then why are they still divided?
While Mary and I had discussed the similarities and
differences during our courtship it didn’t take long into our marriage for
those differences to rear their ugly head. Such differences included why Mary
needed to attend a Catholic Church even if she had attended a Lutheran service,
why I couldn’t receive Holy Communion in a Catholic Church, as well as the
usual Protestant misunderstandings regarding Mary, the Saints, and the Pope. It
would be six years before I would fully understand the context of those
differences.
Certainly, Catholics and Lutherans are similar in
many ways. They are both liturgical. A visitor to both would find that the
readings are the same on most Sundays. Both share similar prayers and share the
sacraments of baptism, marriage, and Holy Communion. Both follow a Catechism.
However, to ignore the differences is to ignore the
actions of Martin Luther nearly 500 years ago, and the more than 20,000
Protestant denominations that have arisen since the original split. To ignore
this fact is to suggest that Catholicism and Lutheranism are more similar than
they really are. This is a disservice to both.
This book is not meant to exaggerate those
differences; it is meant to illuminate what is at the heart of Lutherans who
have been moved to join the very Church that Luther had originally protested.
Their stories highlight those differences, not as a way of dividing, but as a
way of uniting. They demonstrate that there are real and substantive differences
between Lutheranism and Catholicism - differences so profound, that once
realized, they can provoke a conversion of the heart. As these stories
demonstrate, sacramental, doctrinal, traditional, Scriptural, or practical
differences are significant enough to provoke some to make the decision to
embrace Catholicism.
We see small steps of ecumenism at work, trying to
repair the break. At the heart of such efforts lay the unity which Christ
himself so desires. The Joint Declaration on Justification, issued by the
Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church in the fall of 1999, is
one such example. The agreement, which is included as an appendix in this book,
states that the condemnations that each side pronounced against each other in
the sixteenth century no longer apply. While it represents a significant step,
it is at best a baby step on the road to unity. Other differences remain.
Such differences are illustrated, for example, by
the controversy surrounding the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s
(E.L.C.A.) “Call to Common Mission” – an agreement to enter full communion with
the Episcopal Church. Such agreements have been reached between the E.L.C.A.
and other Protestant denominations. In response, a counter-movement within the
E.L.C.A., known as the Word Alone group, has erupted over differences in how
the Lutheran and Episcopal denominations view the historic episcopate - the
unbroken line of Church leadership, as evidenced by the bishops, reaching back
to the days of the apostles. The Episcopal church accepts the historic
Episcopate; the Lutheran church does not.
We are witnesses to events not very different from
Luther’s actions, or the actions of so many Protestant denominations that split
after Luther. Each denomination, in turn, accepts or rejects Church teaching
based upon its own interpretation of Scripture. The Word Alone group is merely
the latest in a long line of successive splits that include denominations such
as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran
Synod, the Church of the Lutheran Brethren of America, and the Association of
Free Lutheran Congregations among others. In the end, one is forced to ask,
“Where does authority reside?”
Those in this book have come to the conclusion that
authority resides in Christ and the Church which He established. Their stories
demonstrate that taking such a leap of faith is not easily or lightly made. In
most cases it requires years of study, prayer, discussion, and discernment. The
sacrifices that some make in their conversion process are truly inspiring. Some
in this book have given up jobs and pensions. Others have given up their very
vocation as minister. The decision for still others has meant separation from
family and friends.
Reading, and re-reading the stories, I marvel at the
ways in which the Holy Spirit works within individual lives. Each story is
unique, and yet in their uniqueness they all bear something in common. The
process of conversion is individualistic, unrepeatable and ongoing.
In my own search I found many books of conversion
stories from an Evangelical or Jewish perspective, but very few examining it
from a Lutheran perspective. This I found very surprising considering that it
was Martin Luther, after all, who originally split with the Church. Of those
that I found that did deal with the Lutheran-Catholic question, Louis Bouyer’s The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism
and Karl Adam’s One and Holy were out
of print.
In the end, my reading could only take me so far. I
needed someone whom I could talk to who would understand my unique background
and perspective as a questioning Lutheran. Remarkably, the Holy Spirit
responded to my need by placing a previously unknown brother in my life. While
I know that my own story is unusual, it is my hope that stories such as my own
and the others in this book will serve to meet other Lutherans where they are
at, and answer some of the unique questions with which so many Lutherans
wrestle.
