The New York Times, with a front page article by this humble correspondent on Jan. 30, 1982, was the first to report on the “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” document because I obtained a copy of the report and convinced editors it was important. In retrospect, the BEM had less impact than expected. But it was the basis for many subsequent ecumenical agreements, especially, I think, among Lutherans. And BEM was an important part of ecumenical history. That news story follows, from the Times archive. Excerpts of the report were included on an inside page.
The NYT story was published in many papers around the country and in the International Herald-Tribune.
Christian Churches Act to Resolve Age-Old Conflicts
By Charles Austin
An international panel of Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic leaders has taken a major step toward resolving some of the theological disagreements that have divided the world's Christian churches for centuries.
Meeting in Lima, Peru, the theologians endorsed a 16,000-word document - in preparation for more than six years - that encourages individual churches to recognize differing approaches to baptism, holy communion and ordination.
''It has built up a common ground that we have not had for centuries,'' said the Rev. Avery Dulles, a Roman Catholic adviser to the group. ''It is amazing how much we can say in common on these topics.'' The intent is to create a more tolerant climate among the churches, enabling them to express Christian unity with out insisting on any one form of Christianity as the only true form. The changes envisioned in the document would take decades, but if individual churches approved the agreement by their representatives, they would have a scholarly framework for what could ultimately be major revisions in their theologies and rites.
A church that baptizes adults, for example, would continue to do so, but under the principles outlined in Lima it might also recognize the legitimacy of baptizing infants - and accept into membership someone baptized as an infant without insisting on rebaptism.
Eventually, churches endorsing the principles would be likely to place greater stress on weekly celebrations of holy communion and to adopt an ordained ministry supervised by bishops. They would also accept as valid the rites and ministries of other Christian denominations and be able to commune freely at one another's altars.
The meeting, of the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order, was attended by more than 100 theologians appointed by their churches. It was convened at the direction of the council, which in 1975, after years of ecumenical discussions dating back to 1927, instructed the commission to develop a document that would express the emerging consensus.
The commission meeting ended Jan. 16 with the unanimous approval of the new document, ''Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry.'' Previous versions of the theological statement had already been circulated among the churches for comment. American theologians involved in the process said the document was developed in closer consultation with churches than many previous ecumenical statements.
''These statements represent as close an approach to agreement among the major Christian confessions as we're likely to get,'' said Dr. Geoffrey Wainwight, a British Methodist who presided at the Lima meeting.
Dr. William Lazareth, a Lutheran scholar from the United States who is director of the Commission on Faith and Order, said: ''We were thrilled that the group was clearly willing to set aside many private theological opinions in a common search. The statement overcomes many of the classical differences in dogma.''
The full text, with official translations in several languages, is to be released at the council's headquarters in Geneva later this year, but some copies became available as participants in the Lima meeting returned to the United States.
The international ecumenical body will send the text to its 200 member churches and to the Vatican for official responses. The Roman Catholic Church, while not a member of the World Council, participates in the commission, which is the council's theological division.
Churches are asked to respond to the consensus statement ''at the highest level of authority,'' and to explain how they view the ''consequences'' if they were to adopt the text. The churches will respond through general assemblies, conventions, synods of bishops or international meetings.
The agreement reached in Lima could be a powerful stimulus for ecumenical dialogues going on throughout the world.
On the question of baptism, the document seeks to reconcile longstanding controversies by endorsing both ''believer's baptism'' of those mature enough to make a profession of faith, and infant baptism. Both forms, the theologians said, ''embody God's own initiative in Christ and express a response of faith made within the believing community.'' Churches that practice infant baptism should guard against ''apparent in discriminate baptism,'' the document says, and churches that delay baptism until a more mature age might want to have a ritual that expresses ''more visibly the fact that children are placed under the protection of God's grace.''
Baptism is ''unrepeatable,'' the text says. It encourages churches to recognize baptisms performed in other Christian communions and avoid anything that might be interpreted as rebaptism.
On holy communion, or the eucharist, the major form of Christian worship, the document draws on what Dr. Wainwright calls ''the past 50 years of renewal in sacramental theology among Protestants, Orthodox and Roman Catholics.''
Among other things, the statement formulates a theology that reconciles the central disagreement over whether the sacrament is a ''sacrifice'' that is repeated with each communion or a ''memorial'' that merely remembers the crucifixion of Jesus.
Traditional Roman Catholic theology has used the term ''sacrifice,'' to describe the sacrament of holy communion, while most Protestants have contended that the rite is a ''memorial'' of Jesus' crucifixion. Both terms have validity, the document says, and the remaining differences in emphasis need no longer divide the Christian community. The eucharist is the ''unique sacrifice of Christ,'' and at the same time is ''a memorial of all that God has done for the salvation of the world,'' the document says.
Previously rancorous disagreements over how the churches explain the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine of holy communion could also be overcome, the paper says. All agreed that their churches ''confess Christ's real, living and active presence in the eucharist,'' although with varying emphases. Churches engaged in bilateral discussions with one another have occasionally reached this conclusion, but the Lima meeting marked the first time this convergence of teaching was agreed to by theologians from such varied Christian denominations.
On the question of ministry, the document says an ''episcopal'' ministry, where bishops oversee the faith and doctrine of the church, best serves the unity of world Christendom. For the sake of the unity of the church and the preservation of doctrine, supervision of ministries by a higher authority, generally a bishop, is necessary, according to the final draft of the text.
This ''threefold pattern of ministry,'' involving bishops, priests, and deacons, is common within Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and some other church bodies, but ''each church needs this ministry in some form in order to be the church of God,'' the document says.
However, the theologians agree that the episcopal ministry is in ''need of reform.'' The consensus statement suggests that this type of ministry, even if not practiced in the traditional manner, is probably the best expression of historic Christianity. It urges churches who do not have an episcopal ministry to consider reinstituting it in some way.
At the same time it asks churches with an episcopal ministry to recognize that ''other forms of the ministry have been blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit,'' and often retain the supervisory functions of bishops without the formal structures of the episcopal churches.
If churches could agree on what constitutes a valid ministry and order, many other doctrinal problems would become secondary, said Dr. Wainwright. However, mutual recognition of ministers, even among churches that already agree on the structure of the ministry - such as the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions - has been one of the toughest problems confronting the ecumenical movement.
Some shadows hang over the ministry section, said Dr. Paul Crow, ecumenical officer for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and a member of the commission on faith and order. Ordination of women, now being debated in many churches, is not discussed, Dr. Crow said, and ''the possibility of discussing the role of the papacy has only emerged in the past three years.''
The strength of the lengthy document lies in its ''theological integrity,'' said Dr. William Rusch, director of ecumenical relations for the Lutheran Church in America and a participant in the talks. ''Some points challenge individual traditions in all of our churches,'' he said. ''Nobody is going to be 100 percent satisfied, but everybody should be able to live with this expression of the faith.''
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