ROME, REPROACHMENT, AND REYMOND

A Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification signed October 31 in Augsburg, Germany, by representatives of the 128 member denominations of the Lutheran World Federation and representatives of the Vatican has touched off a fire storm of controversy. Rev. A. L. Barry, president of the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, responded ads in USA Today and 15 North American city newspapers. Some six Wisconsin bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and eight Wisconsin bishops of the Roman Church countered with more newspaper ads.

Trinity Foundation has published a three-part discussion of the theological problems from a Reformed perspective. The analysis by Dr. Robert L. Reymond originated as a series of Sabbath school addresses at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In addition to reviewing the fundamental questions, Reymond proposes 22 questions focusing the struggle.

The Parker Society translation of William Whitaker's A Disputation on Holy Scripture, Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton (1588) has recently been reissued by Still Waters Revival Books. Though dating to a period prior to Vatican I and the Jesuit coup of the 19th Century, the issues remain essentially the same. Whitaker made exhaustive use of the Church fathers, primary papal sources, and key papal apologists.