Lutheran church worldwide is dynamic and changing
Head of federation pays a pastoral visit to Canada
By Debra Fieguth ChristianWeek staff
WINNIPEG–The head of the Lutheran World Federation, Ishmael Noko, has been pretty well everywhere in the world, as a pastor to pastors and overseeing the work of his denomination.
But the Zimbabwean-born church leader who has lived in Switzerland for the past 16 years has a special affinity for Canada, for it was here that he completed a Master’s degree at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon and a doctorate at McGill University in Montreal.
And with all the learning he has gained from formal education, Noko looks back fondly at his part-time job driving a cab in Saskatoon, wondering whether such employment should be a requirement for all prospective ministers. Inside a taxi, "you’re exposed to the reality of life which clergy men and women do not know about," he says. "The driving world is another world."
Noko was in Winnipeg last month to visit the headquarters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC), as well as Canadian Lutheran World Relief. Of the 60 million Lutherans worldwide, some 58 million are part of the federation, including 250,000 Canadians. (Lutheran Church-Canada is not a member.)
Dynamics vary
While the Lutheran church is "stagnant" in Europe and even losing membership in its birthplace, Germany, it is growing quickly in Africa, says Noko, naming Ethiopia, Madagascar and Nigeria in particular. Growth in Ethiopia is "just incredible," he says: last year alone a quarter of a million people joined the Lutheran church.
The dynamics of the church are vastly different from one place to another. In Africa faith is expressed in vibrant ways; in Asia most of the leaders are first-generation Christians. "Their enthusiasm and piety is exactly what the disciples had."
And in Europe, "there’s a different type of piety," says the third-generation Lutheran minister. "The dynamism is a silent dynamism." He suggests, diplomatically, that "it has to do with age: "Europe is a grandmother. They are Christian but express it in a different way."
Added to that is the fact that in some European countries, the Lutheran church is subsidized by the government, and thus interlinked with the state. "The church was the place where the culture of the nation was preserved."
Working together
In recent years Lutherans have made efforts at working more closely with other traditions, such as the Anglican Communion. In the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe, Lutherans and Anglicans have forged an agreement, and in Canada the ELCIC and the Anglican church have "extended hospitality" to each other through shared communion in an interim arrangement till 2001.
The two groups should be able to get along, says Noko. They "have never condemned each other but we behave as if we condemn each other." He suggests the differences have more to do with liturgical practices than matters of faith. "With the falling away of the borders of Europe we begin to see the superfluousness of the issues."
Interacting with other Christian world communions, "we discover our strength and our poverty," says Noko. There are always questions in these tentative relationships. "How can we be in communion with Anglicans without alienating other Lutherans?" Noko asks. "How do we best give Christian unity the expression of Christian unity?"
The models, he suggests, are found in local settings. St. Paul Lutheran Church in Brunkild, Manitoba, where he once pastored, for example, is cooperating with Mennonites. "They have lived Christian unity without bureaucracy."
Dialogues with Pentecostals, Baptists and other newer, evangelical denominations are healthy because they reveal "what you can give, and what you can receive from others." When he asks himself what evangelicals have preserved from the Reformation, his answer is "the power of the Holy Spirit."
After his Canadian visit, Noko was planning a trip to see a tribal group in a remote, mountainous part of Malaysia, where, no doubt, he will have gleaned some more insights into helping the Lutheran church find its place in an ever-changing world Christian movement.
