End times, One world religion: Lutheran World Federation Pushes 'One Church' Efforts

Talks of a continued commitment toward ecumenism, or church unity, dominated the stage Wednesday at the Lutheran World Federation's assembly.
Lutheran World Federation President Bishop Mark S. Hanson speaks at the LWF assembly in Stuttgart, Germany, July 21, 2010.
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The Lutheran commitment to ecumenism will not end until we can share the Eucharist with other churches, LWF President Bishop Mark S. Hanson said Wednesday at the assembly, which is being held in Stuttgart, Germany.

"If Roman Catholics and Lutherans [for example] can feed the hungry together, wouldn’t it be good if they could be fed at the Lord’s Table together?" he posed.

LWF is the world's largest communion of Lutheran churches, representing over 70 million Christians in 79 countries. It holds an assembly every six years. This year's meeting drew leaders and representatives from the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the United Methodist Church and the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

LWF has pursued deeper relations with each of the global church bodies. One of the landmark ecumenical events was the 1999 signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification

"To be the Lutheran World Federation: A Communion of Churches is to be ecumenical," said Hanson in his report. "When a radically inclusive communion is God’s gift to us in Christ and at the center of our self-understanding we will always define ourselves first in terms of our relatedness to others in the body of Christ.