Conversation on sin: Top religion stories of 1998

Christian Century, Jan 6, 1999

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu returned from the U.S.-brokered meeting in Maryland to face his own rebellious Likud Party, increasingly dominated by intransigent settlers living on occupied Palestinian territory. Almost before the ink dried on the document, Netanyahu began to add further stipulations that Palestinians must meet before the Wye pact can be implemented. Despite his maneuvering, however, the extreme right wing in Israel continued to oppose any measure that would return occupied land to Palestinians. To avoid a vote of no confidence in his leadership, Netanyahu called elections for May 17, a date that falls less than two weeks after the May 4 date on which Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat has threatened to unilaterally declare the formation of a Palestinian state, in keeping with the Oslo Accords timetable.

Israel will choose a new Knesset and prime minister in an election that could determine if the peace process has any hope for survival. A centrist Israeli party promises to push for greater accommodation with Arafat, who faces his own internal political unrest from the militant Hamas organization, which celebrated its 11th anniversary this year. Meanwhile, the gap widens between Israelis and Palestinians as the U.S. promises to fund highways to connect Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, further isolating Palestinian areas, and the Israeli foreign minister calls for settlers to "grab more hills" from Palestinians.

Ecumenical agreements

After three decades of discussion, Roman Catholic and Lutheran theologians hammered out a joint statement on justification by faith that would serve to lift the mutual anathemas that Lutherans and Catholics hurled at each other in the Reformation era. Plans for a mutual signing ceremony were put on hold, however, when the Vatican issued some last-minute "clarifications" of the document.

The document represents a particular strategy for forging ecumenical agreement: each tradition maintains its particular emphases and language, but affirms points of agreement. In this case, regarding Christian understanding of God's saving actions, Lutherans continue to refer to the believer as simultaneously saint and sinner while Catholics stress the renewal of the believer through sanctification, yet the two parties agree on the primacy of God's grace in the work of salvation.

The full communion between Lutheran and Reformed churches in the U.S., voted on in 1997, was celebrated offically for the first time in an October service in Chicago. The service brought together the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America with three churches in the Reformed tradition--the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.

Meanwhile, the ELCA prepared a revised version of a concordat with the Episcopal Church. The pact failed to win approval from the ELCA in 1997 because of resistance to the idea of embracing the historic episcopate as understood in the Anglican tradition. Martin Marty, who chaired the panel that prepared a revised proposal, said the new draft emphasizes the ministry of all the baptized and stresses that the historic episcopate is not of the essence of the church's life, though it is "a sign of the unity and continuity of the church." The ELCA's churchwide council approved the draft, which will be considered by the churchwide assembly in 1999.