Addis Ababa, Ethiopia/Geneva
24.10.2019.
The LWF consultation on Lutheran identities opened in Addis Ababa
“What does it mean to be a Lutheran today?” is the central question of the global consultation on Lutheran identities being held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week.
The gathering of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is beginning a theological study on the ways in which spirituality shapes Lutheran identities and the church’s ability to engage with society today.
Welcoming nearly 70 participants from Lutheran churches in various parts of the world, Rev. Yonas Dibisa, president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY), said that it was a great honor for his church to host such a “timely and important consultation.”
Rev. Yonas Yigezu Dibisa. Image: LWF/Albin Hillert
We want to understand Lutheran identity from both a global and a local perspective. – Rev. Yonas Dibisa, president of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus
He said that the global church “is the result of the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost,” said Yonas Dibisa. In the Ethiopian church, “we want to understand Lutheran identity from both a global and a local perspective,” Dibisa noted. “We do it because we are Lutherans. We do it because we believe in the Holy Spirit, who gathers, sustains and sends the church into the world.”
Referring to the beginnings of the Ethiopian church, which arose from the work of Lutheran missionary organizations more than 100 years ago and its birth as a church in Ethiopia in 1959, Dibisa highlighted the charismatic nature of one of the LWF’s fastest-growing churches. “We come together as disciples of Christ, and we are accountable to one another in accordance with the Word, the sacraments and Lutheran teaching.” The aim of the church, he added, “is to be spiritually dynamic while at the same time being firmly rooted and grounded” in this conviction of faith.
A citizen of the world with local roots
Looking back on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr. Martin Junge emphasized that the Lutheran Reformation is a citizen of the world. As the Reformation spread around the world and churches took root in differing contexts, they adopted the traditions, piety and theological thinking that were offered to them, but they also began to develop their own ways of being church in their real-life setting, Junge added.
“Indeed, this is the day that the Lord has made,” affirmed the LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr. Martin Junge in his opening address.
Image: LWF/Albin Hillert
“The LWF as a communion of churches stands up for and expresses the idea that the church is always local and that it must always engage with the local context, but at the same time the church, together with others, expresses the global witness, as the LWF does through its diaconal branches, theological work, holistic mission and unity.”
“This consultation offers Lutheran churches an opportunity to express in their own words how they take part in God’s service in their context,” Junge reflected. “It is at the same time a place to articulate a global perspective that emerges from these stories.”
“The chorus of Lutheran voices that will emerge as a result [of the consultation] will provide insights into what it means to be a Lutheran church today, looking back on the Lutheran theological heritage and being grounded in the local context,” he added.