A Companion to the Waterloo Declaration: Commentary and Essays on Lutheran-Anglican Relations in Canada

A.J. Pell is rector of Christ Church in Hope, B.C., and a lecturer in
the Anglican Studies Programme at Regent College in Vancouver.

Since 1972, Anglicans and Lutherans around the world have been involved
in periodic formal discussions about their relationship. In Canada, The
Waterloo Declaration is the result of such dialogue. Proposed for formal
adoption in 2001 by the National Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Canada and by the General Synod of the Anglican Church of
Canada (both meet in Waterloo, Ontario, in the summer of 2001—hence
the name), the Declaration is a statement of “full communion,”
recognizing each other’s sacraments and ordained ministries, and
allowing clergy and laity of both denominations to be accepted into both
churches.

This volume seeks to clarify the Declaration and to provide background
information to enable both denominations to understand each other and
the proposed text. Accompanying the text of the Declaration is
commentary by the Joint Working Group that drafted it. Concise and
illuminating, this commentary discusses how each of the eight
“Commitments” in the Declaration can help “full communion ... lead
us into deeper unity.”

Most of the book consists of seven essays about the two churches and
possible contentious issues between them. Most Anglicans, and not a few
Lutherans, will be astonished by Robert Kelly’s history of Canadian
Lutheranism: Anglicans will learn that it is more than just a German
church; Lutherans will discover that the first Lutheran parish in Canada
is now St. George’s Anglican Church in Halifax. John Flynn’s
overview of the Anglican–Lutheran dialogues has not just recent
(post–1972) history, but a brief sketch of denominational relations
from the Reformation to the 20th-century discussions. Allyson
Barnet-Cowan’s essay on the origin and use of the term “full
communion” provides a useful background to the main thrust of the
Declaration. The remaining essays, two on episcopacy and two on the
diaconate, while important, will probably be ignored by all but a few
clergy interested in debates about ordained ministry.