Australian Lutheran – Uniting Church Dialogue
About the LCA-UCA Dialogue
Formal Dialogue between the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) and the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has its origins in a preliminary meeting on 14 October 1978, soon after the formation of the UCA in 1977. This meeting proposed that the general aim of the Dialogue was ‘to establish pulpit and altar fellowship between the Churches’.
The dialogue produced five major statements, which were accepted by the two churches at a national level in the years that followed: the Agreed Statements on Baptism (1984), the Eucharist (1985), Ministry (1986), the Church (1988), and One Christ in Church and World (1990).
Our two churches officially received these five statements as ‘stages on the road to altar and pulpit fellowship’.
The dialogue recommenced in 1997. The following agreed statements were produced in this second phase of the dialogue:
- A Doxological Affirmation (1997)
- Revisions of A Doxological Affirmation (2006 and 2009)
- The Declaration of Mutual Recognition (LCA 2009; UCA 2010)
- A Great Prayer of Thanksgiving with Commentary (2013), as a guide for cooperating LCA-UCA congregations, and as an educational tool in both churches.
Along the way, the dialogue also completed several documents designed specifically to help LCA and UCA congregations desiring to work in a cooperating arrangement with each other. These documents include:
- Guidelines for Establishing Shared Ministry (2009)
- Rites of Installation and Induction (2009)
- Guidelines for the Oversight of Co-operating Congregations, LCA-UCA (2012).
Ongoing work in Receptive Ecumenism
The dialogue started fresh work on the Eucharist as the first stage on the way towards a Concordat. From 2011, the dialogue gave its attention to this collaboration with good results, particularly in resourcing the cooperating congregations coming together to share a minister or pastor on the basis of the Declaration of Mutual Recognition. The situation has been reached where it is permissible for a minister of either denomination to administer holy communion to all members of cooperating congregations under certain conditions.
Since the 2000s, the dialogue has drawn on the principles of ‘Receptive Ecumenism’, which urge partners to engage in both robust exchange and appreciative listening to perspectives other than their own. Through this, we become open to new insights that have not been a focus of the tradition or doctrinal confession of our respective churches. In this way, too, the dialogue has been blessed to move beyond presumed, and even false, understandings of the other church and to a better understanding of our own.
The practice of Receptive Ecumenism has taken us to a new place in the conversation, rewarding us with the refreshing discovery that our two churches’ positions on the Lord’s Supper complement one another far more than previously thought. After submitting a preliminary version to each of our churches for study and feedback, our agreement and particular emphases are documented in the June 2022 statement, At the Table – The Eucharist, which was adopted by the UCA Assembly Standing Committee in November 2022 and by the LCA General Synod in February 2023.
What now?
The dialogue is continuing its study together, working on the matters that need clarification for formal fellowship, as well as asking not just how we face each other, but how we face the wider world and together. Resourcing and encouraging local engagement and cooperation is an important part of this, as is learning from each other’s service and witness in the public domain. This work will continue as the dialogue serves our common life in Christ.
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