Word: jointness
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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They were wrong, but their cause was not totally lost. Last week--457 years, several disastrous religious wars and dozens of denominational splits later--Edward Cardinal Cassidy announced Vatican approval, with some caveats, of a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, toward which Catholic and Lutheran theologians have been toiling since 1967. Some of the Vatican's fine print was shockingly critical of the text, but it let stand without objection the Declaration's grandest statement: "Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part...
...current effort to settle justification began in the '60s, when Catholicism joined the ecumenical movement. Theologians from both traditions eventually concluded that the 16th century anathemas were more a function of crossed wires than a denial that salvation is a no-strings-attached gift from God. The Joint Declaration, says emeritus Yale theologian George Lindbeck, who helped draft earlier efforts, reflects the conclusion that Catholicism never denied justification through grace; it was simply more focused on the human drama of the transformed sinner than on the exclusively divine origin of his or her transformation. "The two descriptions of salvation...
...contradictions. Without denying that salvation always begins with God's grace, the church refuses to relinquish some cooperative agency on humanity's part through, say, penance or charity. This and several other "divergences" are forcefully enough stated that German Lutheran Harding Meyer, one of the Joint Declaration's drafters, declares, "This is the worst news I've received during my whole career. This is not a basis for continuing the dialogue...
That began to change on Saturday, when Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin held a joint press conference that was broadcast live across China. It was an astonishing affair, as Clinton and Jiang parried over human rights, Tiananmen Square and Tibet. Clinton patiently explained the U.S. position on Tiananmen: "I believe, and the American people believe, that the use of force and the tragic loss of life was wrong." Jiang countered by insisting, "Had the Chinese government not taken the resolute measures, we could not have enjoyed the stability we are enjoying today." Without prompting, Jiang denied that China...
...officers who participated in the mission, several of whom said they believed nerve gas had been used on enemy troops attempting a counterattack on the U.S. forces. Those reports were confirmed by several high-level military sources. Admiral Thomas Moorer, U.S.N. (ret.), who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked on camera in general terms about the military use of sarin. Before the broadcast, the Pentagon said it could find no evidence to support the story. Defense Secretary William Cohen subsequently announced an investigation of the charges...