From Federation To Communion

Book Summary

The starting point of this volume is that the LWF, the successor body to the short-lived Lutheran World Convention, was established on "four pillars" - rescue for the needy, common initiatives in mission, joint efforts in theology, and a common response to the ecumenical challenge. The volume traces what has happened to this founding vision by means of penetrating surveys of eight themes of service, mission, theology, ecclesiology, ecumenics, inclusiveness, and political and social justice as they have unfolded in Federation history. Most fundamental, as the title of the book indicates, has been the maturing of the LWF's self-understanding from a "free association of Lutheran churches" to a "communion of churches." New theological, ecclesiological, missionary, and sociopolitical insights concerning global and ecumenical Lutheranism emerge as the twentieth-century history of the international communion of Lutheran churches is recounted, celebrated, and evaluated in From Federation to Communion. The volume includes a Handbook of the Lutheran World Federation, which reviews eight LWF assemblies and presents concise biographies of Federation presidents and general secretaries. The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), founded in 1947 by representatives of 47 Lutheran churches, virtually all from Europe and North America, now numbers 122 member churches on all continents. At its founding it saw itself as a "free association of Lutheran churches" a self-understanding that has matured to "a communion of churches". From Federation to Communion traces the fifty-year history of the LWF by comprehensively and critically surveying its dominant concerns and activities -- service, mission, theology, ecclesiology, ecumenics, inclusiveness, and political and social justice. The volume, which features more than fifty photographs, also includes a handbook that provides a review of all LWF assemblies together with biographies of each Federation president and general secretary.

Book Details