Ecumenical News International (ENI) reports on the election of the new General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF):
The Chilean pastor elected as the next general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, the Rev. Martin Junge, said after his election on 26 October he believes firmly in the maxim that “to be Lutheran is to be ecumenical”.
“To be ecumenical is not an option but an expression of who we are as a communion of churches,” said the 48-year-old Junge, who is to take up his post following the next LWF assembly in Stuttgart, Germany, in July 2010.
….
Junge has since September 2000 headed the Latin America and Caribbean section of the LWF’s Department for Mission and Development in Geneva. There he has dealt extensively with a programme involving Lutheran churches as facilitators in dealing with the problem of “illegitimate foreign debt” in the region.
“Our clear vote is a strong, strong statement of our confidence in Martin Junge,” said Hanson, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Addressing the council after his election was announced, Junge pledged to work to strengthen relationships between the members of the LWF, describing responding to the diversity of the federation as “a task and a challenge”.
“We have said all the time that to be a communion of churches is to be in a special relationship,” said the LWF general secretary elect, comparing the federation to an orchestra. “It is up to us to find the tune, the melody,” where “different sections join in a polyphony”, said Junge.
Still, he acknowledged that the LWF is entering times, “in which we are entering dissonance. But according to musical theory there is no harmony without dissonance.”
The Episcopal Church is in Full Communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The Church of England is in Full Communion with the Lutherans in Scandinavia. The LWF has similar stresses to the Anglican Communion from disagreements of the Bible and sexuality among the partners.
The LWF is made up of 140 churches from 79 nations.
UPDATE: Reactions from Church of England and others.