Mapping the Differentiated Consensus of the Joint Declaration, Rinderknecht

This book uses the insights of cognitive linguistics to argue for the possibility of differentiated consensus between separated churches. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, signed by the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholic Church in 1999, represents the high water mark of the twentieth-century ecumenical movement. It declares that the sixteenth-century condemnations related to justification do not condemn the teachings of the partner church. Some critics reject the agreement, arguing that a consensus that is differentiated is not actually a consensus.