Called to Common Mission
Encyclopedia
Called to Common Mission is an agreement between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three churches. As of December 31, 2009, it had 4,543,037 baptized members, with 2,527,941 of them...

 (ELCA), establishing full communion between them. It was ratified by the ELCA in 1999, the ECUSA in 2000, after the narrow failure of a previous agreement. Its principal author on the Episcopal side was the Rev. Canon J. Robert Wright
J. Robert Wright
J. Robert Wright is the St. Mark's in the Bowery Professor of Ecclesiastical History at General Theological Seminary in New York City...

. Under the agreement, they recognize the validity of each other's baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

s and ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...

s. The agreement provided that the ELCA would accept the historical episcopate
Historical episcopate
The episcopate is the collective body of all bishops of a church. In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Rite Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Old-Catholic, Moravian Church, and Independent Catholic churches as well as in the Assyrian Church of the East, it is held that only a...

, something which became controversial in the ELCA. In response to concerns about the meaning of CCM, bishops in the ELCA drafted Tucson Resolution, which presented the official ELCA position.

Some within the ELCA argued that requiring the historic episcopate would contradict the traditional Lutheran doctrine that the church exists wherever the Word is preached and Sacraments are practiced. Others objected on the grounds that adopting the Episcopalian priesthood and hierarchical structure was contrary to the Lutheran concept of the Priesthood of all believers
Priesthood of all believers
The universal priesthood or the priesthood of all believers, as it would come to be known in the present day, is a Christian doctrine believed to be derived from several passages of the New Testament...

, which holds that all Christians stand on equal footing before God. They argued that the Old Covenant
Old Covenant
The Old Covenant was the name of the agreement which effected the union of Iceland and Norway. It is also known as Gissurarsáttmáli, named after Gissur Þorvaldsson, the Icelandic chieftain who worked to promote it. The name "Old Covenant", however, is probably due to historical confusion...

 required a priest to mediate between God and humanity, but that New Covenant
New Covenant
The New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment...

 explicitly abolishes the need for priestly role by making every Christian a priest with direct access to God's grace. Still others objected because of the implied directive that Lay presidency
Lay presidency
Lay presidency is a form of celebrating the Lord's Supper whereby the person presiding over the sacrament is not an ordained minister of religion...

would be abolished. This was a particularly issue for rural congregations that periodically "called" a congregation member to conduct communion services in the absence of ordained clergy.
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