LARCUM

LARCUM Conference Seeks Question of Reception

By Steve Neill
Special to the HERALD
(From the Issue of 12/21/06)

LARC, the Virginia interfaith group representing Lutherans, Anglicans and Roman Catholics, recently joined forces with United Methodists, resulting in a new title: LARCUM.
There is always room for more at the table, said United Methodist Bishop Charlene Kammerer, leader of the Virginia United Methodist Conference, at a recent conference entitled “Reception” at First English Lutheran Church in Richmond.
A spirit of camaraderie was present as clergy and laity of the four denominations shared fellowship in between the general sessions. Virginia's two Catholic bishops — Francis X. DiLorenzo of Richmond and Paul S. Loverde of Arlington — attended the Friday night session along with Bishop Peter Lee of Virginia’s Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Those present affixed their signatures to the new LARCUM document affirming the goal of Christian unity and calling for joint prayer and interfaith activities at the local parish and congregational level.
Dr. Michael Root, a Lutheran and the dean and vice president for Academic Affairs at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., was the event’s speaker. A Virginia native, he was raised Presbyterian, but became Lutheran when he went to college. He has a doctorate from Yale University.
“The concept of reception may sound simple — it’s receiving things,” said Root in the first of four talks. “But it’s a much more complicated issue.”
Reception in the ecumenical sense calls for a change of heart, he said.
“It is our task to hand on the faith,” he said. “We hand on what we’ve been given to the next generation. “We’re called to receive the faith and make it ours.”
While one who receives the faith from the previous generation is called to preserve it, he or she must also “want to make it your own,” Root said. There is disappointment from Christian believers when the faith is not received as they intend it. It is even more disappointing when the faith is “de-received.”
In the area of ecumenical dialogues, Root said there is hope for authoritative teaching in which there will be reception in our churches of ecumenical agreements.
“There is a dialogue, a decision is made, and then it must be received by the wider church,” Root said. Those who promote interfaith dialogue actively seek reception of each other as Christians, he added. “The decisive question is: What does it mean to receive one another? When we are not in fellowship with one another, we are internally wounded.”
While unity in Christ among the four traditions is desirable, Root said he did not want what he called a “corporate merger.
“How can you have reception if anything goes?” he said. “This is something we need to face up to … . It may be that we have to be less articulate as we find a new language. These are deep challenges.”
Root said he saw ecumenism as a part of the renewal of the church.
"What attracted me to ecumenism was renewal," he explained. "It seemed an enriched form of Lutheranism, an enrichment of my Christian life. In the end, reception is the work of the Holy Spirit for which we can all pray."
Msgr. Raymond A. Barton, Vicar for Ecumenism and Interreligious Affairs for the Diocese of Richmond, told The Catholic Virginian, newspaper of the Richmond Diocese, that the process of reception is "critically important to the life of the Church because it enables the Church at all levels to bring into its life the Spirit's diverse gifts.
"Dr. Root masterfully opened the eyes and ears of the participants by citing the exchange of gifts offered and received by those churches and ecclesial communities who seek full communion with each other," he said.
Charles Roberts, an Episcopalian from Arlington who is married to a Catholic, said he would like to see more of a united effort among the four LARCUM churches in helping take care of the poor in our midst.
"We could do far more than we're actually doing," he said. "The world is in dire need of our united effort."
Parishioners of St. Nicholas, Virginia Beach, where Msgr. Barton is pastor, returned home from the LARCUM Conference with a proposal that the parish’s ecumenism committee begin to include other churches in their Kings Grant community as members and allow them to participate in the committee's planning.
"I found that to be an outstanding example of applied learning," Msgr. Barton said.