(ENS) I welcome the draft proposal "Called to Common Mission, A Lutheran Proposal for a Revision of the Concordat of Agreement," released by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The original Concordat of Agreement was passed overwhelmingly in the summer of 1997 by the Episcopal Church's General Convention and then narrowly defeated by the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA. The Assembly determined that the Concordat should be revised and the revision presented to them for approval in the summer of 1999. That process is well underway, and the draft released is now being circulated to the spring Synod meetings of the ELCA for discussion and response.
The draft proposal was prepared by an ELCA drafting team working in close consultation with three representatives from our church, whom I appointed in response to their invitation. Members of our Standing Committee on Ecumenical Relations have also participated in an advisory session with the drafting team.
If a revised document is passed by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in the summer of 1999, it will become their formal proposal to us. We will then have a year for study of the Lutheran proposal within the Episcopal Church before it is presented to our General Convention in the summer of 2000. With the approval of our General Convention, we will realize the fruit of more than thirty years of dialogue between our two communions.
Though it would be inappropriate to make any formal comment or statement on the proposal, knowing it is in the discussion stage among our Lutheran sisters and brothers, I can enthusiastically commend the process leading to this proposed text as an excellent one: careful and consultative.
Over these next months, I encourage members of our church to engage with ELCA members locally in dialogue and reflection on the proposal. Let us pray for this important effort together, and place our hope in God, who yearns for our oneness in Christ - and the strengthening of our mission for the sake of the gospel.