Ecumenical expectations were high at the start of the celebration of the 2,000th anniversary of Paul’s birth last June (July 2008, "Why Paul matters now").Looking back now on this observation called for by Pope Benedict XVI that concludes June 29, one is able to point to a range of extremely significant ecumenical impulses that did emerge.
• The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew invited all the primates of the Orthodox Church to a Pauline symposium in October for the enrichment of their pastoral care and work. The symposium began in Istanbul (Constantinople), followed by a pilgrimage to places connected with the life and work of Paul. It included lectures by New Testament scholars representing Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Afterward the ecumenical patriarch flew to Rome to pray with Pope Benedict in the Sistene Chapel, becoming the first Orthodox leader to conduct a service there and marking the heightened ecumenical collaboration between the churches.
• Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, wrote last June to the member churches and institutions, saying that in “every generation, the apostle has made a challenging conversation partner: again and again his writings have stood at the beginnings of renewal in Christian life. He struggled with many of the most intractable questions of faith, and no one comes away from his writings without being instructed, exasperated, puzzled and inspired. For our time, when communities of Christians in many parts of the world are discovering anew the costliness of discipleship, the faithful witness of Paul the prisoner and Paul the martyr also speak to us with fresh strength.”
He also observed that “without attention to the Pauline writings it is difficult to imagine the Lutheran movement in the church.”
• Lutheran participation in this bimillennium celebration of Paul included not only many international opportunities for ecumenical worship and involvement in academic conferences at the Basilica of St. Paul, but also significant learning possibilities on the territory of the ELCA. One was the Lutheran-Anglican-Roman Catholic-United Methodist conference in Portsmouth, Va., on “Paul and Christian Unity.” Several Lutheran-Episcopal-Roman Catholic-Orthodox symposia on Paul took place in Springfield, Mass. Also, the ELCA
The true measure of success for the Pauline Year will be whether such bold ecumenical and theological initiatives can not only be sustained and deepened, but whether they can gain the increased participation of the laity for the deepening of their life in Christ and for their support of pastors in their preaching and ecumenical endeavors.
This task is complicated by the number of facile and often contradictory books on Paul that have flooded the marketplace. Commenting on this problem, biblical scholar Brevard S. Childs said: “By neglecting the whole subject of the Christian canon, and replacing it with a form of philosophical postmodernism, the modern interpreter continues to flounder rudderless in a world torn apart with countless competing agenda” (The Church’s Guide for Reading Paul: the Canonical Shaping of the Pauline Corpus, Eerdmans, 2008).
A good starting point for the continued study of Paul would be the apostle’s letters, together with commentary in the Lutheran Study Bible (Augsburg Fortress, 2009). Also helpful for the study of the letters in the context of brief worship and meditation is Pope Benedict’s Celebrations of the Word in the Year of St. Paul (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2008) and his Saint Paul (Ignatius Press, 2009).
With continued study, reflection and prayer, we can continue the celebration of Paul - and carry Christ to the world, sustained by the same faith and evangelical power that was his.
Association of Teaching Theologians is devoting its August annual meeting to the thought of Paul.
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Source (Lutheran Magazine)
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