There We Stood, Here We Stand

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.