The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JD) signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church in Augsburg three years ago was bound to have repercussions for other churches that are in dialogue with the signatory communions. In the case of the Reformed, these dialogues have included the very subject of justification by grace through faith.

In November 2001, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed and Roman Catholic representatives gathered in Columbus, Ohio, to test whether and how far it was true that what Rome and the LWF had done they had done, as the Methodists suggested, "for us all".

Reformed representatives in Columbus
Reformed participants

The JD states what is known in the trade as a "differentiated consensus". On the one hand, the dialogue partners agree on the essential contents of a doctrine previously disputed between them. On the other hand, they explain - both to themselves and to others - why in the light of this consensus differences remaining between them are no longer divisive. They agree and, on the basis of that agreement, they agree to disagree.

Reformed participants in the Columbus consultation were full of admiration for what Russel Botman called the "breakthrough" represented by the JD: it was, Anna Case-Winters said, "a remarkable step in advancing the unity of the church".

But they had two problems with the JD consensus.

The first problem has to do with the church: the new agreement on justification between Wittenberg and Rome seems, so far as the church is concerned, to leave them exactly where they were before. And that, as Michael Weinrich argued, cannot be right: "In Luther's understanding, the insight into the specific characteristic of justification was a leaven for the whole of theology and the whole of church life (Calvin spoke of the pillar on which the whole church is grounded)... The understanding of the church - its shape, its practice and its teaching - depends on the understanding of the meaning of justification."

The second problem has to do with the world: "It is a scandal to people who are dying daily of poverty, violence and oppression," said Russel Botman, "when we postpone discussion on the relationship between justification and justice, treating the latter as merely a matter of ethical application."

"To affirm a doctrinal statement that relinquishes the doctrinal connection between justice and justification would be a betrayal of everything that Christianity has learned about justification after Auschwitz and apartheid."

The upshot of what we may call this differentiated endorsement of the JD by the Reformed participants is a recommendation to the four sponsoring communions to set up a quadrilateral study commission in which Reformed perspectives - for example, the strong connections we have just mentioned between justification and individual and social life - could contribute to further deepening the understanding of the doctrine. In this study commission, the Reformed would continue to explore whether and how they might express support for the agreements set forth in the JD. This proposal will now go to the WARC executive committee for further discussion.

Páraic Réamonn