A prominent Lutheran scholar told a group of Lutherans, Anglicans and Roman Catholics in Virginia Beach that he feels Christian unity among the three traditions will not be reached until there is a formal acknowledgement of the role of the papacy.

"It is absolutely essential for reconciliation in the West to recognize some sign of papal authority," said the Rev. Dr. Donald S. Armentrout, a Lutheran pastor and professor of church history, in one of three addresses at the 2001 Virginia LARC Conference Dec. 1 in Virginia Beach.

"There will be no reconciliation in the churches of the West that we all desire without some kind of recognition of the Bishop of Rome," he added.

Dr. Armentrout, a native Virginian who grew up in Harrisonburg, admitted he had no idea how this will come about, but he felt there would be "some give and take" among the three Christian traditions.

"Yes, we'll have to give up a little bit, but we have to do that in all relationships, don't we?" he asked rhetorically.

"I don't say 'I'll be your friend only if you do such and such.'"

While Martin Luther is credited with founding the Lutheran Church, Dr. Armentrout said that a separate church was not his intention when the Augustinian monk challenged the Catholic Church for what he considered abuses. These issues are no longer relevant today, he asserted.

"The Gospel in all its fullness is proclaimed in the Roman Catholic Church," he said. "In short, the emergency in the 16th century is over, it's all cleared up."

Dr. Armentrout, ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1972, now teaches at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., a co-ed liberal arts college with 1,350 undergraduates and some 50 students in an Episcopal seminary. It is located "in the middle of nowhere," he joked, explaining that Sewanee is in a rural part of Tennessee 50 miles north of Chattanooga and 90 miles south of Nashville.

Often using a wry sense of humor, which proved a hit with his audience, Dr. Armentrout suggested that theologians refrain from making any more formal statements about Christian unity.

"We can stop inventing the wheel, we can use the documents we already have in place," he said.

"Tell the theologians to stop writing and let us read what they've already written."

The Lutheran scholar brought much laughter from his audience of about 200 when he said he seldom reads the writings of Protestant theologian Martin Marty.

"I don't like anybody who can write faster than I can read," Dr. Armentrout said.

There are few differences between Lutherans, Episcopalians and Catholics, he asserted.

Christians depend on the saving grace of God for salvation and justification takes place solely by God's grace through faith and not by good works alone, Dr. Armentrout said.

A criticism of Lutheranism, he claims, is that when one is justified by faith, some then ignore the social ethic and feel "that one doesn't have to do anything but rest in that knowledge."

Roman Catholics, on the other hand, emphasize the renewal of the interior person through grace and are encouraged to proceed in good works.

Using the old question "If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?" Dr. Armentrout joked that a baptized Lutheran looks the same as before.

"The justified person does still have sin in him or her, but it is not held against us," he said. "We continue to sin, but we enjoy it less.

"But are good works necessary for the Christian?" he asked. "Of course. God does not need them, but our neighbor needs them."

Language is often ambiguous and has often caused a great part of religious differences, Dr. Armentrout asserted.

For example, he said, when one hears the word "dog," some might see a German shepherd while another will see a chihuahua. In addition, the Bible, particularly the Psalms, is often poetic.

"On the intellectual and theological level, we're going to encounter words which don't have a precise meaning and we're going to have a paradox," he said. "We must take a comprehensive approach to the scriptures because there are different presentations of a single event.

"The best way to get at Christian truth is not to narrowly define it," he added. "We should move from either/or to and/and."

Virginia's two Roman Catholic bishops, Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of Richmond and Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, attended the entire LARC Conference. The two other bishops attending were Bishop Theodore Schneider of the Metro-D.C. Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Bishop James Mauney of the Virginia Synod of the ELCA. Episcopal bishops in Virginia were absent from this year's LARC Conference.

"Ecumenism is a central part of my ministry as bishop," Bishop Sullivan said. "In my 31 years as bishop (he celebrated his 31st anniversary Dec. 1 during the conference), I have found it enriching."

Voicing the view that most other Christians believe the same as Catholics, the bishop joked that he eventually came to the conclusion, "Hey, they're not so bad after all."

Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde has attended all three LARC Conferences since he moved to Virginia from Ogdensburg, N.Y., in 1999. His attendance at the 2001 conference came less than 48 hours after he returned from Rome where he attended a canonization ceremony.

"Ecumenism is not something on the periphery, but part and parcel of our journey as disciples of Christ," Bishop Loverde said. "We're on the journey and it's good to be on the journey."

Quoting St. Augustine, he said, "As we leave one another, let us not depart from Him. After all, it is in Him that we have our oneness."

And while intercommunion between Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians is not yet a reality and therefore a source of pain to those longing for it, Bishop Loverde advised those seeking Christian unity to be realistic and honest with each other.

"Communion is the sign and cause of unity," he said. "The whole issue of orders must be worked through.

"But I believe the offering of pain up to the Lord will perhaps move us toward the point where we are fully one."

Bishop Mauney said that he felt the annual LARC conference is valuable because those who attend learn they speak a common language in their worship of the Lord.

"We need to be asking for more conversations because we learn we're both trying to express the same thing," he said. "It is good coming into each other's church home and hearing that language said in common."

As in all LARC conferences, the Virginia Beach conference was held at three different churches of the three traditions, each of which has a prayer service with the singing of hymns. It opened Friday night at Good Shepherd Lutheran, reconvened Saturday morning at Emmanuel Episcopal Church and concluded in the afternoon at Ascension Catholic Church where lunch was served.

"I know of no other place in the country where there is such a long history of these annual conferences as in Virginia," said Rev. Thomas Prinz, an Episcopalian.