Side by side, speaking in an age when some would dismiss religion as a source of violence and division, Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Mark Hanson, president of the Lutheran World Federation, will join other international dignitaries and faithful in a service of thanksgiving celebrating their common Christianity. Bishop Sharon Zimmerman Rader, ecumenical officer for the United Methodist bishops, will also be there.

How big a deal is this in the grand sweep of Christian history? “It’s of enormous importance because it is the first point of conflict of the unfolding of the breakup of the Western church,” says the Rev. James Massa, executive director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the Catholic conference. “It’s of enormous importance for all of the traditions within Christianity that have their roots in the Western church.”

The statement declaring the council’s fundamental doctrinal agreement with the Catholic-Lutheran document on justification by faith was circulated twice to all member churches, including The United Methodist Church. The statement was signed by Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist representatives July 23, 2006, at a meeting of the World Methodist Council in Seoul.

In their common affirmation, Methodists, Catholics and Lutherans said they viewed the agreement as a sign of their desire for a “common witness to the world, which is the will of Christ for all Christians.”

“I think it’s extraordinary that it has happened,” says the Rev. William MacDonald, a United Methodist minister who serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Vonore, Tenn. “With Methodists joining on, I think that just re-energized the issues.”

“We believe in a gospel of reconciliation,” he says. “We have to be reconciled among ourselves if we are to be a convincing witness to the world.”