One of my professors was a member of the Roman Catholic-Lutheran Dialogue. He found that when people stopped yelling at each other and actually listened they could find common ground. For example, the Lutheran emphasis on “faith alone’ and the Catholic reminder of the necessity of living out the faith was bridged by using the formula of St. Paul in the letter to the Galatians: faith working through love. That serves as a reminder to genuinely listen to those you are disagreeing with to find common ground. Also, the Pauline formula tells us that faith is not so much an intellectual affirmation of certain propositions as it is finding the loving presence of God in our dealings with the people woven in our lives.
