Does Luther Have a Future in Germany? A Quick Look

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by Jobst Schöne, Berlin, Germany

Editors Note--This is a greatly abbreviated version of a full-length article from the Epiphany 2011 issue of the same name.

Germany: the homeland of the (Lutheran) Reformation. Is it a Christian country? Forget it. What about a Lutheran nation? Not at all. If this was ever the case, it certainly is no longer so. Today Germany has a largely secularized and unchurched population. Some fifty years ago, ninety-six percent of Germans belonged to one of two predominant churches, the Roman Catholic Church or the Protestant Church (the latter being partly of Lutheran, of Reformed, and of United traditions). Nowadays, less than two-thirds of Germany’s citizens still hold a church membership, at least on paper, and their numbers are constantly shrinking. In the last eighteen years, the Protestants lost 3.8 million members and the Roman Catholics 2.2 million. Church attendance on an average Sunday is down to 3.8 percent of the members in the Protestant churches, while the Roman Catholics are only slightly better off. As a whole, Christians in Germany are losing ground dramatically, moving quickly toward a shrinking minority.

Statistics, however, demonstrate only part of the changes taking place. Germany’s foremost newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, recently published a lengthy article entitled “What is Going to Happen to the Churches?” by Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, a Protestant systematician at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich.1 He deplored the almost complete lack of intellectual integrity among church leaders, along with their poverty of realistic self-perception and theological seriousness. This crisis is a very deep one. What characterizes German churches, according to Graf, are feelings of well-being, emotions, moralism, and the attitude of the “prophetic know-it-all,” confronting the poor churchgoer with all the misery of the Third World and making him feel responsible for it. Sadly, this is typical of legalistic preaching that cannot properly distinguish law and gospel.

It is no wonder that this sort of church environment has created a widespread and growing attitude of “believing without belonging,” now found all over Europe. This phenomenon is perhaps better understood as an unwillingness to support a church that does not know how to communicate the gospel—how to preach salvation—and that has no better message to proclaim than the one illustrated above. The situation is bleak enough even without the numerous cases of child abuse in churches and Christian schools and homes that have recently been disclosed. These and various other scandals are altogether undermining confidence in the representatives of the church (and not only in those of the Roman Catholic Church).

Lutheranism in Germany has been totally marginalized. Certainly a few Lutheran remnants with a number of “conservative” and faithful pastors and their congregations can still be found in the Landeskirchen (that is, the former state churches), and within a church like the SELK (the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church), but mainstream Protestantism has lost its confessional orientation almost completely. Churches are generally considered to be nothing but assemblies of like-minded fellow believers, brooding over shared needs and problems that they experience in this world, but lacking a focus on eternal salvation. The inherited order of worship is almost gone; ancient hymns and the songs of our fathers are no longer sung. These have been replaced by contemporary forms, songs, and music that in the meantime have proven to be more destructive than helpful.

Among the upper circles a widespread feeling of helplessness is to be found, as the leadership does not know how to fight the church’s decline. In 2006, the EKD (Evangelical Church in Germany, comprising all former Protestant state churches) published an “impulse paper” outlining the outlook for the twenty-first century. The experts who wrote this lengthy statement had a clear vision of what is to come: decline in membership by one-third in the next twenty years, a loss of half of the church taxes (the foremost financial basis for EKD member churches) from the current four billion Euros to only two billion, and a necessary cut in the number of clergy by one-third. Overall it is a rather depressing scenario, revealing the depth of the crisis and calling for repentance and a change of heart. But what do the experts recommend? They call for the churches “to risk and cultivate more freedom,” to praise “inward plurality” as a “simultaneous temptation and blessing of Protestantism”; they strive after a “church of freedom and individuality.”2 One may wonder if it will still be the church of the apostles, the martyrs, and the great teachers of the past—the church Luther sought to cleanse, the church that Löhe and Walther had in mind.

With such a document in hand, it is easy to lose confidence in the future of an Evangelical church in Germany, not to mention the future of a Lutheran one. Once the Scriptures and the Confessions are no longer needed to clarify the church’s identity, their confessional profile is indeed lost and surrendered to modern pluralism. Thus we might have to accept that Christian churches in general, and a Lutheran church in particular, will gradually disappear from the public scene in Germany. There seems to be no need for the church any longer. A few years ago Johannes Gross, a well-known and brilliant German journalist and editor, and an accurate observer of public life (also, by the way, a member of the Lutheran Church), made a remarkable assertion. He claimed that the Protestant and Lutheran churches would not survive the twenty-first century; only the Roman Catholic Church will be left. Perhaps he was too negative or even altogether wrong with his prognosis; perhaps some small groups, some small churches will remain. So, too, the Lutherans, though marginalized.

Does Luther have a future in Germany? There is reason enough for skepticism. Yet on the other hand we are reminded of what Luther himself once expressed so clearly: “It is not we who can preserve the church, neither could our ancestors do so, nor will our descendents. Instead, it was and still is and will be he who speaks: ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the world.’”3 Does Luther have a future in Germany? If God desires it, he will have one—in Germany and elsewhere.

1. Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, “Was wird aus den Kirchen?” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (1 April 2010), 35–36.

 

2. Kirche der Freiheit: Perspektiven für die evangelische Kirche im 21. Jahrhundert: Ein Impulspapier des Rates der EKD, ed. Kirchenamt der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (Hannover, 2006). Quotations: “…mehr Freiheit wagen und gestalten” (34); “Die innere Pluralität der evangelischen Kirche ist zugleich Versuchung und Segen des Protestantismus” (50); “…in der evangelischen Kirche—eine Kirche der Freiheit und Individualität” (86).

 

3. WA 50: 476.31–35: “Denn wir sind es doch nicht, die da kündten die Kirche erhalten, unser Vorfahrn sind es auch nicht gewesen, Unser nachkomen werdens auch nicht sein, Sondern der ists gewest, Jsts noch, wirds sein, der da spricht: Jch bin bey euch bis zur welt ende,…” (“Wider die Antinomer,” 1539).

A Call Service Sermon by Rev. Juhana Pohjola

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Call service, 28.5.2011 Christ Lutheran church, St Catharines, Ontario Rev. Juhana Pohjola

John 16:23-30

Leaving a legacy! Yes, Christ has gathered his disciples into the upper room. It is farewell time. I’m leaving the world and going to the Father. This is the final session together. They have travelled a long time together. Now the hour has come. It is time for Jesus to leave his legacy to his disciples and then walk alone the path from Gethsemane.

And what is the legacy that Christi is leaving to his disciples and to his church? He is leaving them, he is leaving you three promises.

The first one is his name. Truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. What was the greatest gift that Moses received and through him the people of Israe? Was it the law, the 10 commandments, the collection of rules that we can read about it the second Book of Moses? No. What was it, then? If I come to the people of Israel and say to them: The God of your Fathers has sent me to you’ and they ask me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? Yes, Moses received the name of God. The name which guaranteed access to God, not only access but a gracious access! The holy name of God was the great gift for his people. They were taken under his name. The holy name dwelled among them in the tabernacle. And that is why the second commandment deals with the Holy Name: we should not profane it.

What is the greatest gift that Christ is giving to the pillars of the New Testament people, not to the twelve tribes but to the twelve apostles? His name. And he adds a promise to his name: whatever you ask in my name, he will give it to you. Does this not sound like a golden heavenly credit card given at your disposal?! Like something too good to be true. But Christ really means what he is saying. This is not any cheap pre-election promise. No he stands behind this promise also today.

What would you then ask in his name? Think big here. Not only good health, a bigger house, a permanent job and all the good things we ask for in the petition for daily bread! What was the biggest thing Moses could come up with? Do you remember what he asked God! Show me your Glory! Moses asked to see God! To have unhindered, open access to God’s holy presence! To see God, that is beyond our comprehension, but it is what heaven is all about! Moses got the answer: You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live!

From this perspective it is amazing to hear what Jesus says to Philip in the upper room: Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father! Whoever has Jesus, has unlimited access to God’s gracious presence, And whoever has Jesus name has Jesus himself. And whoever has Jesus has the Holy Spirit who makes the name known to us through the word. When Christ gives his name to the disciples, it is not a sign that he is abandoning them, that his name is to remind them that he once was with then. No! The given name is a reality that guarantees to the disciples that he is with them to the end of the age!

His promise was not only for the apostles but also for you. You have received his name. You were taken under his name’s protection when the pastor took water and said: I baptize you in the name... What a joy, what a privilege it is for you say boldly today to God : I have the holy name: You are my Father, I’m your child! I belong to you! And what does this mean for a called and soon to be ordained servant of Christ? It means: I’m not dependent on my name, my strength, my wisdom but it is for me to bring his holy name, God gracious presence to those who by nature have no access to God’s holy presence. In his name forgive sins, in his name baptize, in his name consecrate the life giving bread and wine, in his name pray for God people!

This is his legacy! What about the two other promises? What more can you still ask if you have received God himself in his name! Jesus says that two things necessarily come out it.

The second part of the legacy is the cross. In the world you will have tribulation. Jesus does not say you might have some hard times, it is possible that you might face persecution. No. It is a given fact. And this means not only the hardship of life. This is tribulation because of his name. We must take our cross. Why? Because the world does not recognize Christ’s name. The world opposes and your flesh fights against his name. Are you prepared for tribulations as a Christian? Or do these words of Jesus apply to you: You will be scattered and will leave me alone? What is the point when you are done with Jesus? I’m not asking what is the point when you stop paying tax-deductable donations for the church? I’m asking you when it gets too costly for you to confess his name in word and deed? When do you keep quiet although you know you should speak up? When do you step on the sunny side of the majority, when you know you should defend the biblical truth and be in a minority? Don’t think that pastors are free from this temptation. How often we are more interested in our good name than Christ’s name. How often we are more concerned that people like us than that they hear what God has to say to them in his word. How often it is more important for us to be successful in the eyes of men than to be faithful in the eyes of God. Tribulations. This is a part of Christ’s legacy that we do not need to go looking for, but at the same time we cannot escape and avoid them in this world.

But did you hear what goes together with tribulations? I have said these things that in me you may have peace! This is the third promise. Peace in him. Dr Luther tells about a man in Wittenberg who fell down from the roof. Miraculously he did not hurt himself. When he was back on his feet, he said: Now I know that God loves me! Yes this is the natural wisdom of you and me. When life goes smoothly, when business is running well, the kids are getting good grades at school, the grandparents are in good health, your favourite team is winning, and even your neighbour’s dog is not barking at you! Then you have peace, then you can say: Yes, after all somebody up there seems to like me! It is good to be grateful to God for his protection and for all the gifts that he gives us. But this is not the peace Christ is talking about. This is the peace that the world can give. The peace of this world consists in happy days, healthy days, peaceful days. No sorrows, no distress, no pain, no cross. This is peace according to our understanding, but his peace passes all our understanding. His peace you can see at the deathbed of a Christian, who is scared by his ruined body but at the same time also comforted by the everlasting word. It is the peace that you see when you meet a Christian who has lost his job and the future looks gloomy, but you can hear the silent words of hope: But I still have you, dear Jesus! The peace Christ gives is not only a happy face and calm heart, but also assurance of his love and of his gracious presence in the midst of tears and a broken heart. It is the peace that can say: Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me! His legacy is not peace before or after the tribulations but peace in the midst of the tribulations. And that is why you can say even with a broken leg and arm, I know that God loves me because he has given me his saving name. His saving name, his sacramental presence in his name is our peace also in tribulations!

His name, his cross, his peace. This is the legacy. But only during our earthly journey. At the moment his name, his presence is hidden under lowly earthly forms, his cross feels sometimes heavy to carry and the peace of our heart is often challenged. But our true inheritance is waiting us in glory. My question to you as a Christians, as students prepared for vicarage and as a called servant to be ordained to the office of the Holy Ministry: Is Christ’s legacy enough for you or is it too much or too little?

Maybe it is common here also but I know that it is common in Finland to say, that to all other places the devil sends his assistants but when the election of a pastor or the reading of the will of the deceased takes place, then the devil himself comes in person. When the question is about Christ’s legacy, then then the devil will be there. Christ’s testament, his will, his word is challenged again and again in this world, in your life, in your journey, in your ministry.

That is I want leave you with the words that I saw when I was walking along Church Street in St Catharines and passed City Hall. There I found these Latin words written. They were new to me but are familiar to you: A Mari usque ad Mare (From Sea to Sea). As Psalm 72:8 says: May he have dominion from sea to sea. Do you hear? Not the devil, not tribulations, not even yourself but He, Christ, has dominion in your life from the waters of your baptism through all the storms of your life till the end, when there is a new heaven and new earth and the sea is no more. From sea to sea under his name. Not only across Canada. But all the way home. This is your legacy in Christ, he is your true inheritance!

The Commemoration of St. Patrick, by Kurt Reinhardt

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The Commemoration of St. Patrick

Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church Kurtzville, Ontario Rev. Kurt E. Reinhardt

Isa 52:7-10; 1 The 2:2-12; St Matthew 28:16-20

Patrick, it’s his day today, the day the Church remembers a saint who by God’s rich grace brought Jesus to the Irish. Patrick, a servant of Christ, captured at 16 that he might one day set his captors free; enslaved in a foreign land that he might one day lead his slave-masters home; a herdsman to pigs that he might one day shepherd the sheep of Christ.

The luck of the Irish has little to do with the fact that Patrick’s day happens to be the same day that we his fellow servants have gathered here. Although I can claim to be 1/8 Irish, my ¾-plus German content, I am sure, overrules it. Fortunate? Providential? Fortuitous? Whatever it may be, it is noteworthy. As we gather to ponder the work of the Church with her young people, how helpful to have such an example to reflect on, to learn from, to imitate.

This stalwart missionary heading back into not only a foreign culture but an enemy culture to teach them about Christ has something to say to all of us as we consider work with youth. They too at times can seem like a foreign culture to many of us, even though we too were once a part of it, and perhaps in a rather delusional kind of way think it was not so long ago that we left it behind.

Six years of slavery amongst the Irish without a doubt prepared Patrick for true service to the people of the fair green isle. He learned their language. He learned their thoughts. He learned their ways. Our recollections of our own journey through our difficult teen years, as well as careful observation and study of today’s youth, in a similar way can help us to serve the young sheep of Christ.

Yet while Patrick’s knowledge of the Irish was a help to him, it was not what brought him back to his captors’ land or gave power to his work amongst them. What drove Patrick back to Ireland and empowered him to drive the Great Serpent from her shores was not a love and knowledge of their smiling Irish eyes, since they smiled little on him in his time there.

What drove Patrick back to Ireland, what empowered him for the great work he accomplished there, was the authoritative sending word that our Lord Jesus Christ spoke to the Eleven… "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you."

Patrick was drawn into that great sending out that began in the heart of the Father, took on flesh in the incarnation of the Son, flowed out in the giving of the Spirit, and flooded the world in the life of the Church. As Patrick returned to the land of his captivity he was part of that great sending out that the nations might be caught up and returned to the Lord. He was drawn into God’s glorious work of drawing back and binding up again what sin had broken and torn apart.

As Patrick went to the nation of the Irish he went as a part of that sending ministry, that apostolic ministry whose work is to bind the children of man back to God and to one another through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sending ministry, the gathering ministry, is always centered and focused on the Sent One, the Gathering One; it is always about Jesus.

And so that ministry is always a baptismal ministry, where Jesus is given and shared so that through Him poor sinners may be brought back into life with the Triune God. The baptismal ministry then unfolds in the life of the disciple in nurturing, nourishing, building up the disciple in the communal life of Christ through His life-renewing forgiveness, His life-creating Word, and His life-imparting flesh and blood.

Although Patrick’s day has been hijacked to be a celebration of those he was sent to return to the Lord, the Irish, what this day is actually about is the ministry accomplished by God through this poor miserable sinner, who wasn’t even Irish himself. In a similar way the Lord wants to keep us mindful that our work amongst the youth is about God’s ministry to them. As Patrick’s day has come to be about all things Irish, so too our work amongst the youth can be in danger of becoming about all things youthful instead of all things Jesus.

In our rapidly changing world, in an increasingly hostile culture, we have a great task, what sometimes can seem an insurmountable task, to serve the young people of today, and to help them to remain faithful to Christ. The temptation is ever there to look to other things, to other means—other than those that Christ has given to us—to try and keep what so often seems like such a feeble grip on our young people. Yet if the ministry of the Church is to be the ministry of Christ, it must do the things that Christ has given it to do.

Undoubtedly as Patrick looked to those shores where he had been cruelly enslaved and mistreated, I am sure he had misgivings about the task that the Lord had given to him. Yet what propelled him forward, and what is here to propel us forward, is the beautiful bookends that our Lord gives to His sending mandate. All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me… and behold I am with you always, to the end of the age. The sending ministry is not only all about Jesus but it is carried out with Jesus; it is carried out in and through Jesus.

The all-authoritative Christ is always with us, brothers, to do His work for His people. He has promised to be with us always until the end, until the work is finished. In confirmation of this truth He stands before us today in His flesh and blood, the flesh and blood in which He suffered and died to save us, the flesh and blood in which He rose from the grave that we might have life in His name, the flesh and blood in which He stood on the mountain and spoke those powerful words to the Eleven.

In this flesh and blood He speaks to us today also in the midst of our fears and failures, our worries and our doubts, and says, “Behold, see, all authority has been given to Me, and I am with you always; and so do not fear, go in peace, and in Me you will bear abundant fruit.” Amen.

There’ll always be an England?

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—by John Stephenson

There’ll always be an England—won’t there? Dame Vera Lynn, the “Forces’ sweetheart,” is famous for assuring her fellow countrymen, in the darkest days of World War II, of their nation’s survival of the deadly threat posed by Nazi Germany. The memorable refrain of Dame Vera’s song was uttered most emphatically as an assertion, not as a question. View "There'll always be an England" on You Tube

As a bald topographical assertion, the title of Dame Vera’s trademark song will likely remain an incontestable statement till the Last Day dawns. But as she toiled under George VI and Churchill to rally the British nation in the aftermath of the evacuation of Dunkirk, Dame Vera—who is still alive at the grand old age of 94—was patently dealing in the genre of civilization, not geography, when she sang “There’ll always be an England” with such superb defiance into the Führer’s face.

Remarkably, although he saw himself as a buttress supporting the Church from outside rather than a pillar propping her up from within, in his famous “Finest Hour” radio address delivered shortly after he took over as Prime Minister, the agnostic Winston Churchill declared that “Upon this [just starting] battle [of Britain] depends the survival of Christian civilization.”

Secularization, using as its tools such characteristically twentieth-century phenomena as Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and—especially during the half century of unprecedented prosperity that followed the Second World War—good old utilitarian hedonism, has done its work so thoroughly across the ocean that we must wonder how, in a book published in 1920, Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) could seriously state, “The Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith.” For by the turn of the third millennium the European Union would define its cultural origins in terms of ancient pagan Greece and Rome, on the one hand, and of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment on the other, resolutely omitting all mention of Christianity in this context, despite persistent prodding from the papacy to do this very thing.

Considered in the wider context of long-term cultural trends, the three nights of rioting, looting, and arson that broke out in London on 6 August 2011 and began to spread to other major English cities, where they continued into a fourth night of disturbances, justify our placing a sombre question mark behind Dame Vera’s song. Will there in fact always be an England, if by this proper noun we understand the Christian civilization that was planted in Roman times already, that overcame the shock of Anglo-Saxon and Viking invasion, and that endured in large measure into the middle of the last century? Humanly speaking, the answer to this rhetorical question can only be a trembling No.

Over the years I have dimly remembered reading somewhere in Hermann Sasse the claim that no Christian nation has survived after turning its back on Christ. Try as I might, I have been unable to locate such a crisp statement anywhere in Sasse’s writings. The closest I have come has been to a lengthy essay of 1932, penned in the shadow of the imminent Nazi takeover. As he dealt with “The People” (das Volk) in “Vom Sinn des Staates” (= On the Meaning of the State), Sasse argued that “peoples” arise on the face of the earth in response to a call from God:

The Christian faith maintains that what makes a people a people is the call of God who, in the ups and downs [Schicksale] of history, calls men, families, races [Geschlechter], and tribes into the community of a specific people [Volkstum] (In Statu Confessionis II: 346f.).

Sasse concluded this section of his 1932 essay by speaking of the “death sentence” in store for all nations who turn a deaf ear to the divine call that once forged their existence—“where this call is no longer heard by anyone in a people, where no one any longer has a clue about the connection between God and people, there people and their distinctive characteristics [Volk und Volkstum] perish” (ISC II: 348). Sasse’s bold testimony against the Third Reich (he was one of the only German Lutherans to join Pius XI in calling a spade a spade with respect to Nazism) might fitly be (a) Christologically sharpened and (b) applied to the current state of Europe in general and Britain in particular (bearing in mind that Canada and the US do not lag so far behind old Europe!).

Is it not significant that “England” emerged as a single conceptual entity only simultaneously with Bede’s account of its definitive Christianization in his Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation? Until well into the twentieth century one could distinguish between, but not separate, the English nation and Church from each other. This statement holds good for English history throughout the confessional upheavals that produced Anglicanism, “English Dissent” (=Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists), and Methodism. By the nineteenth century Roman Catholicism was able once again to take a modest place in English public life. In this wide context English (and British) public culture was confessionally pluriform indeed, but distinctly Christian nonetheless.

To cut a long story short, the 1960s and their after-effects have changed all of that, overturning the heritage of almost two millennia. Anyone who wishes to understand the “anti-cultural revolution” that has marked the ensuing decades is advised to peruse with care the essays of the retired English physician who writes under the nom de plume of Theodore Dalrymple. His Our Culture: What’s Left of It is a particularly eye-opening piece of work.

As they issued a judgment effectively barring a devoutly Christian middle-aged black couple from fostering children (they would teach the sixth commandment, after all, and we couldn’t have that, could we?), on 28 February of this year two High Court judges issued a lengthy ruling that contained the following stunning sentence: “But the laws and usages of the realm do not include Christianity, in whatever form.” http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2011/375.html

The learned gentlemen might have done well to cast a glance at the Coronation Service, at whose last observance, in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II responded in the affirmative to Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher’s question, “Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?” See http://oremus.org/liturgy/coronation/cor1953b.html

Moreover, they might have considered how the 1944 Education Act, which still remains on the statute book, lays down that each State-funded school must begin each day with a “broadly Christian” act of public worship. This provision having fallen into abeyance in recent years, it can no longer count on much public support, especially among the younger generation. See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8743072/Most-schools-shunning-law-on-Christian-assemblies.html

And they might have done well to reflect that England and Scotland each still have “churches established by law,” a fact indicating that “the laws and usages of the realm do include Christianity,” in many and various ways!

It would be hard, indeed almost impossible, to exaggerate the collapse of Christian religious practice among all confessions in England in particular and in the UK in general over recent decades. The old parish system, which predated the Reformation, is everywhere in a state of collapse and, with very few exceptions, doctrinal substance has been diluted beyond recognition. Pagan generations have therefore grown up on formerly Christian territory, a facile utilitarianism their only spiritual armour, unbridled hedonism their only pursuit. The UK now “boasts” an abortion rate of 200,000 slaughtered infants per annum (189, 574 in 2010, to be precise). Following the ways of the ancient Canaanites and of the Israelites who joined their bandwagon can only result in Britain’s sharing their ineluctable fate. Which preachers in the British Isles are currently pointing out these sorry facts to their benighted compatriots?

The recent disturbances in London and other major cities took place against the dual background of the realm’s slipping into a spiritual dark age of secularization and of its succumbing to tidal waves of Islamization. In earlier ages Islamist aggressors ran into stout resistance from such rulers as Charles Martel, Charles V, and Jan Sobieski. This time around, though, they can only prevail against the effete ruling elite in the manner of knives slicing through hot butter.

North Americans do not have the luxury of beholding the cultural collapse of Europe in general and England in particular from the safe distance of a secure haven. Weakened by runaway debt and sinking under the costs of a decade of war, the US economy is tottering close to the abyss into which the Eurozone has plunged. Moreover, Christian religious practice has taken a nosedive on this continent also, not only in Canada, which has followed European patterns for some time already, but also in the US. Here in Canada the ruling elites increasingly enforce a “soft” totalitarianism of secularist utilitarianism—the final volume of novelist Michael O’Brien’s Canadian trilogy seems not so sensational to a soberly realistic analyst of the times. Marriage no longer exists as such, and the lives of the weakest in society have less and less status in public law—babies have none, and the rights of the old and the sick are increasingly precarious. Let’s not forget how “Dr” Morgenthaler, the “father” of abortion provision in this country, received in succession an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Ontario and the Order of Canada from our last Governor General. It seems that Hitler lost one war only to change shape and win another.

Thinking with Sasse, we might picture the US as called into being by the voice of God through the events of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, forming a religiously and confessionally pluriform society, but coming together nevertheless as a preponderantly Christian nation. As it relegated the native peoples to the margins and contended with the tensions between the French and the English, Canada’s call to nationhood was likewise confessionally pluriform, and yet came together into an overwhelmingly Christian nation, where many native Canadians freely embraced the Gospel and where Jews have rightly enjoyed security and felt at home. But can the US and Canada endure in, with, under, and after breaking their bonds of allegiance to Christ the King? I very much doubt it.

It remains to be seen how the British Government and society will deal with the aftermath of the London riots, which are but the tip of an immense iceberg of social decay that has formed in tandem with the radical dechristianization of England and the other nations of the British Isles. But the ruling elites of all the major parties could not possibly put the 1960s into reverse gear—God the Holy Trinity, the Decalogue, and Christian dogma are definitively out: just ask the judges of the High Court.

At all events, though, there will only be an England in Dame Vera’s sense of the word if the land returns to the obedience and gentle rule of Christ the King. May it please God, using the clergymen of whichever confession He pleases, to grant a mighty revival of English Christendom at this time through a prolonged and resounding proclamation of His Word that must begin with the boldest imaginable call to repentance. Oremus pro Anglia—Let us pray for England.

Witness, Mercy, Life Together Bible Study by Albert Collver: A Review by Robert Zagore

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A new Bible study and DVD presentation, Witness, Mercy, Life Together [Witness Mercy Life Together Bible Study by Albert B. Collver, Saint Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2011. 64 pages. $5.99.]

WMLT Bible Study

has been published as a rally-cry-educational-let’s-work-together piece by Dr. Albert Collver and the LCMS President Matthew Harrison. Many pastors who receive it in the mail will have a conditioned response, ‘we’ve seen this before.’ Every publishing house, every administration, and (it seems) most pastors seek to build the church into a savvy social organization using marketing surveys, demographic insights, and the effective use of technology. Slogans and catch phrases inform believers about the church’s core competencies, strategic goals, and mission. Books and “Bible Studies” show how theirs is really the Lord’s plan updated and informed by the insights of the modern mind. How strange and welcome therefore is the new Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod theme and emphasis, which is built on something altogether different. “Witness, Mercy, Life Together” is the new Synodical emphasis put forward by LCMS President Matthew Harrison and his administrative staff.  The emphasis is not a focus-group-tested slogan set forth to move forward with strategic objectives. “Witness,” “Mercy,” and “Life Together” are words the Lord has spoken describing the work of His church. The church is purest and most beautiful when she is defined and described by the Lord. Through his eyes she stands as “a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:27). It is indescribably refreshing to the weary to hear those words applied to us. That is the point of the new study by Dr. Albert Collver: to hear what the Lord has said about his church and embrace it as a gift. From the start one can tell this theme and Bible study are much different than the usual “grow more, give more, get more” fare.

The difference becomes obvious in Lesson One, “Witness.” In the church-speak world the word witness has become shorthand for an intentional conversation by which believers help an unbeliever make a decision for Christ and therefore grow the kingdom. “Lesson One” should really be called “Round One” because Collver gently wrestles the word back to its biblical intent: “The Lord saves souls, but He locates His saving Gospel in the Church, and He uses people within the Church as his instruments to proclaim the Gospel” (p.14). The leader’s guide, the accompanying Steven Starke hymn, and the impressive concordance of biblical usage thoroughly equip students and leaders to complete the journey that brings the word “witness” back from law to gospel.

“Round Two,” builds on this gift and extends it. Throughout history, well-intended but misguided people have declared that pure doctrine and the desire to save the lost are antagonistic goals. Systematicians have sometimes made doctrine devoid of proclamation. Mysticism, pietism, and the theological descendants of Dwight Moody decry doctrinal and confessional subscription as anti-missional. The LCMS is certainly no stranger to this battle. Collver however beautifully and convincingly demonstrates that these two stand together in the Lord’s church: “A witness that does not confess what Jesus taught is not a Christian witness. Likewise, a confession that does not witness is not a New Testament confession. . .Telling about Jesus and doctrine go together” (p.18). The leaders’ guide to this section is especially strong. As Collver presents a precisely written and beautiful summary of how true doctrine is manifest in Christ coming to us according to his promise—which is the only hope of the world. With very little modification the leader's guide could become a great Christmas sermon.

Lesson three wrestles the word “mercy” (his translation of the Greek word diakonia) back into its biblical sense: “Being rooted in the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for us on the cross, mercy means feeding the poor, taking care of the sick, and caring for the orphans and widows. Diakonia, then is caring for our neighbor in concrete and effective ways because of what Jesus has done for us” (p.22). Collver does not speak of himself, but his experience as a parish pastor and as an executive in LCMS World Relief and Human Care fills this far-too-brief study with an authenticity and understanding that is known by one who has “done the hard work” (Proverbs 14:23).

Lesson four, “Life Together” leads through a study of the biblical word koinonia. Once again the word is rescued and revived from its more unworthy uses. In common usage koinonia and its common translation "fellowship" have lost their biblical, sacramental foundation and have come to refer to donuts. Collver’s study and leader’s guide demonstrates with great skill that our fellowship and unity are not founded on liking each other (think of St. Paul and Barnabas) but on a doctrinal and sacramental unity that transcends men, personalities, and time. If the LCMS (or any denomination) would escape their bondage to bickering and infighting it will only be as people who have a bond that is deeper than human affronts and leadership cults. “Life Together” rightly teaches divine fellowship that flows from the gospel as the hope and substance of churchly interaction. Reconciliation with Christ through His cross enables reconciliation with others. Individual gifts find their fruit and proper use through their incorporation in the Body of Christ.

Lesson five, “Witness, Mercy, Life Together” speaks of the history of conflict in the days of the apostles. The obvious conclusion is that the unity of the church has always been under assault from without and from within. The only proper response and the only faithful response of the church is to return to the mission that can be summarized by the Bible’s words witness, mercy, and life together.  It is indeed commendable that the author would take this approach to a topic so important at this stage of the LCMS’s life. The approach is biblical, evangelical, and draws us to the gospel and the need for the faithful administration of the word and sacraments.

The accompanying DVD shows LCMS President Harrison presenting these same doctrines in a way that is winsome, pastoral, and humorous. He demonstrates a tremendous grasp of the practical application of Lutheran theology. While the production quality is not wonderful, it is hard to imagine a faithful non-partisan who could fail to be edified and delighted by Harrison’s presentations.

The study is designed to be used in any adult or teen level Bible class and can be used with great profit. Pastors may find that its most enduring value will be as a “new member’s” class or a follow-up to Catechism and confirmation classes. Many congregations offer special classes for those who wish to join by transfer or reaffirmation of faith; it is hard to imagine a better study for such use.

The Bible studies, leader's guide, and DVD are not fundraising, team building, or leadership training devices that use pop psychology and marketing techniques to win hearts. They are biblical, sacramental, genuine, doctrinally solid studies on the nature of the church. It is easily the most useful item to come out of the Synodical Office Building since the sainted A. L. Barry’s What About series; and in many ways, it is more important. One can pray that the biblical emphases in these studies will come to mark President Harrison’s term of office. If so, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod is entering a period of great importance in this dark and fallen world. “The world is longing for what we have,” Harrison cries out in the presentation. If the LCMS and her leaders can maintain a strong biblical witness, shown forth in mercy and lived out in our life together, she will truly be, “a radiant church.”

Robert Zagore is Senior Pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church and School, Traverse City, MI.

Luther’s Anthropology in the Genesis Lectures

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—by Tim Beck

When asked, “What is man? my daughter replied, “We're sinners.” Despite the attractive succinctness of this definition, Martin Luther provides a more detailed anthropology. His lectures on Genesis, summarized in this paper, describe man when created, as fallen, as initially restored (the life of faith), and as gloriously restored beyond Adam's pre-fall state. This anthropology is intimately connected to man‟s Redeemer, God-made-man. After righteous Adam fell, he and his reprobate seed seek what God has hidden and hide from what he reveals. However, when faith is created through the word, believers rely on Jesus Christ's promises. Despite suffering sin's afflictions from within and without, the Second Adam's seed is united with the Second Adam. Then believers anticipate seeing the glory of the Father, enduring present trials as signs of divine favor. Luther's anthropology begins when the Creator declared all things good. Adam and Eve were made in God‟s image. They also possessed exceptional gifts. Regarding those gifts, Adam's physical abilities, sensations, intellect, and memory were singular, tranquil, and fearless. He could see like the eagle and handle bears or lions like puppies (AE 1: 62-65). His reason, will, and emotions were faultless and precise. Adam and Eve were in all ways vastly more superior to the creation than they were after the fall.

These gifts allowed Adam and Eve to fulfill their vocations joyfully. As masks of God, they exercised dominion as joint stewards over the creation (AE 1: 67). From their perfect knowledge of all created things from animals to herbs, Adam and Eve commanded the living creatures at will. In the order of marriage Adam loved his wife and Eve received his love gladly, subordinating herself to him. There was no disharmony or division between them. Sexual relations were pure and therefore as public and honorable as sharing a meal (AE 1: 104). Adam was appointed as pastor in the order of worship, faithfully teaching Eve. She gladly received Adam's instruction as from God, including the command not to eat from the forbidden tree. They walked together with the pre-incarnate Christ in the cool of the evening. This order of family and worship sufficed until the fall. There was no need for civil government and its sword since there was no sin (AE 1: 115).

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The Third Sacrament

In recent years the subject of forgiveness in its theological context has again become a topic of discussion. [1] This discussion has concentrated on the forgiveness that takes place between individuals, [2] without neglecting totally the divine dimension of forgiveness. [3]

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1856 Ordination Rite Translation

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Translator’s Note:

The text below is a translation of the German Church-Agenda for the Evangelical Lutheran Church Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other states.

The original can be found at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56525112/Ordination-1856-MA-German

 

Kirchen-Agende für Evangelisch-Lutherische Gemeinden. (St. Louis: Druckerei der Deutschen Ev. Luth. Synod, 1856).

The ordination rite is taken from pages 171 – 176 of the aforementioned book. The numbers appearing in brackets [ ] correspond to the original page numbering of the Kirchen-Agende.

The aforementioned Kirchen-Agende was translated into English in 1881; however, the translation omitted several parts including the ordination rite translated in this document.

Church Liturgy for Evangelical Lutheran Congregations. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1881).

 Albert B. Collver, III
1998 Epiphany 5

 

 

Ordination

 

The ordainer steps with his assistant to the altar. On the steps of the altar stands the one to be ordained. At the conclusion of the song, the ordainer and his assistant turn around facing toward the one to be ordained and the first one says:

 

Our Lord Jesus Christ said after his resurrection to his disciples (John 20): “Peace be with you! Just as the Father sent me, also I am sending you. And when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive now the Holy Spirit! Whomever’s sin you remit, it will be remitted to him and whosoever you retain, to that one it will be retained.”

And later before his Ascension he said to them (Matt 28): “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go there and teach all peoples and baptize them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to hold all, which I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world.”

And after he ascended above all heavens, so that he fulfilled all things, he appointed some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers, that the saints would be prepared, for the work of the Office, so the body of Christ will be built up. (Eph. 4:11ff.)

Therefore the office, which preaches reconciliation, is setup by the Lord himself. The office is of the Spirit, who judges the living and the dead. The office of the New Testament is not held by one who is fit of himself, but he who is fit is [fit] because of God. They are ambassadors in the stead of Christ, God admonishes through them, and they bear God’s office full of exuberant clarity. (2. Cor. 3:5)

Therefore you ought also to adorn it in all respects, as St. Paul wrote to Timothy and Titus. For a bishop should be blameless, a man of one wife, who has believing, obedient children with all respectability, who administers his own house well (but if someone does not know how to administer his own house, how will he provide for the congregation of God?). [172] [A bishop ought be] not stubborn, not angry, sober, moderate, not a wine swiller, not a braggart, not dishonest working with his hands, virtuous, pure, chaste, just, holy, hospitable, kind, not a brawler, not avarice, gentle, not a novice, so that he does not puff himself up and fall into the judgment of the Blasphemer, apt to teach, because he holds on to the Word, which is certain and able to teach, so that he be able to exhort through the salutary teaching and to reprove the gainsayer. He must also have a good reputation from those who are outside, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Blasphemer’s trap. He should persist with the reading, with exhortation, with teaching and not disregard the gift, which was given to him through the prophecy with the laying on of the elder’s hands. He should wait, [and] contemplate, so that he will increase in all things manifest. He should have concern for himself and the teaching and remain steadfast in his task. For in whatever he does, he will bless himself and his hearers. – Most of all in the same way the holy Apostle in his exhortation to the elders called to Ephesus (Acts of the Apostles 20.) recently united, thus he said, “Thus, now take care of yourself and of the flock, which the Holy Spirit has appointed you under as bishop, to tend the congregation of God, which he purchased through his blood.”

All this makes plain for you, what a high and holy office this is, into which you were called, and that what the Apostle said is certainly true, “Whoever desires the office of bishop desires a wonderful work.”

 

Here the one to be ordained kneels down.

 

Therefore, I ask you now, beloved brother in the Lord Jesus Christ, before the eyes of God, our Lord Jesus Christ and his holy angels, also in the hearing of this congregation, whether you, after careful consideration are ready to take upon you this holy office, and according to the ability that God gives [unto you], to execute and administer [it] according to every pleasure of the Lord and Arch-Shepherd of this congregation?

 

Answer:

 

Yes, I am willing after earnest consideration for the holy office, which God has called me to be placed upon me; I solemnly vow and pledge before God and his congregation [173] according to the ability that God gives to execute and administer it according to every pleasure of the Lord, the Arch-Shepherd and Bishop of Souls.

 

The ordaining pastor continues:

 

But do you also confess that you are obliged to carry out in accordance with his office, in the three chief Creeds of the church, the Apostles, Nicene, and Athanasian, as in the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, both catechisms of Luther and the Formula of Concord are found a pure and correct explanation and exposition of God’s Word and Will? And are you willing to execute on account of this your office according to these confessional writings of our holy church and to do this to your death?

 

Answer:

 

Yes, I confess the three chief Creeds, the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, both catechisms of Luther and the Formula of Concord as the pure, correct explanation and exposition of the divine Word and Will; I confess the same as my own confession and intend to perform my office until my death truly and diligently in the same way. May God strengthen me through his Holy Spirit! Amen.

 

The ordaining minister speaks again:

 

Upon this your promise before God and us, we ask God, the Father of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, the one Lord of the harvest, that he, who called you to his Office, make you able through his Holy Spirit. May he grant, that you give no one offense, lest in this way the office is slandered, but demonstrate yourself in all things as a servant of God, in great patience, in afflictions, in needs, in anxieties, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in work, in watching, in fasting, in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in friendliness, in the Holy Spirit, in pure love, in the Word of Truth, in the power of God, through the weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left hand, through honor and dishonor, through malicious rumors and good rumors, as a seducer and yet truthful, regarded as unknown and yet known, as dying and behold, you live, as beaten, and not yet killed, as [174] a mourner, but at all times cheerful, as poor, but making many rich, as having nothing, but yet having all things. (2 Cor. 6.) The Lord gave you, therefore, to endure and to do the work of an evangelistic preacher, that you may be able to appear on that great day before the judgment seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give a common answer, to the strict and just judge of the living and the dead, to receive praise and honor out of his hand and to shine as the heavenly splendor and as the stars forever and ever!

 

Next the assisting ministers lay hands on [him] and each speak a biblical wish.

 

Then the ordainer speaks again.

 

We consign you now through the imposition of our hands to the holy office of the Word and Sacraments of God, the Trinity, ordain and consecrate you to the service of the holy church in the Name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!

 

The other fellow ordaining ministers answer:

 

Amen. Amen.

 

Then all the ministers pray together:

 

Our Father … forever and ever! Amen.

The ordainer again:

 

Let us pray! Merciful God, heavenly Father, you have spoken to us through the mouth of your dear Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. “The harvest is great, but the workers are few – pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he send workers into the harvest.” By this your divine command we pray from the heart, that you would give abundantly this your servant together with us and everyone, whom you called to your office, your Holy Spirit, that we may spread your Gospel, continue truly and strongly against the Devil, World, and Flesh, in order that your Name be hallowed, your kingdom increase, your will be done. Put a stop also to all your enemies, who oppress your Name, destroy your kingdom, oppose your will, place a limit and end, and wherever your servants bear witness and work, distinguish your witness and the work of your hands to the glory of your most holy Name and to the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

[175]

 

The ordainer says to the ordained:

 

Thus lead and tend the flock of Christ, that you have been entrusted with, and watch [it] well, not under compulsion but willingly, not for the sake of vile gain, but from the bottom of your heart, not as one who rules over people, but become an example for the flock; that you may receive the unfading crown as an inheritance when the Arch-Shepherd appears. The Lord bless you from above and make you a blessing for many, that you may produce much fruit and your fruit remain for eternal life!

 

The ordained answers:

 

Amen.

 

Afterwards one sings: “Lord God, We Praise You …” or “Now Thank We All …”, whereupon the Holy Meal begins with the Words of Institution. The ministers accompany the newly ordained to the Table of the Lord.

 

__________

 

If an already ordained minister enters a new parish, allow the installation of him to proceed in the same manner, only that the conferring [of the office] not happen in general, but after answering the questions one of the following prayers beneath the laying on of hands is spoken, and after that: “Go Now To That Place …”

 

__________

Two Prayers

For use after the answering of the installation questions.

1.

Merciful God, heavenly Father, you who have fatherly comforted and promised us through your holy apostle Paul, that it is your good pleasure, O heavenly Lord and Father, to save all who believe through the foolish preaching of the crucified Christ. We pray from the bottom of our hearts, that you would bestow with Divine grace and grant and impart to this your servant, whom you have called to your Holy Preaching Office, your Holy Spirit. In the same way grant and impart strength to him against all trials of the Devil and make him wise and able to lead, your costly bought sheep with your salutary and true Word according to your divine will to the praise and glory of your Holy Name, through Jesus Christ! Amen.

 

[176]

2.

 

O Lord Jesus Christ, you the eternal Son of God who sits on high at the right hand of your heavenly Father, give gifts to the men on earth and send them shepherds and teachers, that Holy men be prepared for the work of the office and the building of your spiritual Body: we say from the heart to you praise, honor, thanks, that you have given your congregation once more a shepherd, and we pray that you would bestow your Divine grace to him and to us, that we may do what is due to you, to maintain faith and good conscience until death and obtain eternal life with all the elect. Amen.

 

The assisting minister receives a kind of ordination, as pastor, each case with respect to the congregation, whom he should serve chiefly, and where possible in their midst.

 

On the day of ordination or installation, the new pastor does not preach, but his entrance speech follows on the immediate following Sunday.

 

__________

 

The Lord bless you and keep you!

The Lord illuminate his face upon you and be gracious to you!

The Lord lift up his continence upon you and give you peace. Amen.

A Book That Could Change American Lutheran History?

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Another review of: Power Politics and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict That Changed American Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011) by James C. Burkee. This review by David Ramirez.

 

James C. Burkee’s recent book, Power Politics and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict That Changed American Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), has received a fair amount of attention in American Lutheran circles. It is not a definitive or comprehensive history of the struggle within the Missouri Synod during the mid-twentieth century, nor does it seek to be. It is best considered a supplemental text for those who wish to study the conflict. It is certainly not going to change American Lutheran history, or how we view it. Prof. Burkee is to be commended for the hard work and long hours that went into researching, studying primary documents, and interviewing key players in the conflict. However, it is a work weak in analysis with little proof for its many sweeping assertions.

 

Uncharted Waters?

 

Burkee obviously believes that not enough attention has been given to the political and cultural context of Missouri’s conflict, and he may be right. Unfortunately in his Introduction, he vastly overstates his case, “almost all of what little has been written about the period addresses the theological debate that divided the church, as if the schism happened within a contextual vacuum” (2). Who would be an example of a writer who treats this conflict as if took place in a “contextual vacuum”? It is true that many writers do not specifically dwell much on the American political context of the conflict. However, Marquart devotes almost a full third of his book, Anatomy of an Explosion, to the philosophical, cultural, and theological context. And certainly the liberal/moderate accounts are all very cognizant of the context, political and otherwise, describing the Missouri Synod emerging from the parochial “ghetto” into modern America. If anything, the complaint was and still has been made that the liberals/moderates were unwilling to admit the extent of the theological factors in the conflict.

 

Surveying the conservative writings of the time yields abundant evidence that they were aware of the context. In Crisis in Lutheran Theology (Vol. I)[i], John Warwick Montgomery goes so far as to explain that the reason for the rise of the liberal/moderate movement, “…is in many ways sociological. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is an immigrant Church, and the standard pattern among immigrant groups is to remain walled off from the new society by language and by tradition for a time, and then for a younger generation to react violently to its past and to seek to identify completely – generally to over-identify – with the new environment.” In a collection of essays by conservatives, Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church[ii], attention is given by several authors to the political, cultural, and philosophical context of the conflict.

 

Again in the Introduction, Burkee makes another exaggerated, and unproven, assertion, “I argue here what I believe everyone knows but few will confess: the schismatic history of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is about more than just theology” (2). Who are these people who won’t confess this? I have never met these people. I grew up in the AELC and then the ELCA amongst former Missourians and Seminex families. (My father is a graduate from Seminex ) I attended Valparaiso University with folks across the Lutheran spectrum. I graduated from Fort Wayne with plenty of “conservatives.” There has not been a time in my life that the Seminex conflict has not been a hot topic for discussion. I can recall no one who claimed it was only about theology! It is true that most of the writers thus far focused primarily upon the theological arguments. And it is helpful to have a study focused on the political context in which the conflict took place. However, a humbler thesis would be more appropriate.

 

Underlying Problems

 

Two of the greatest underlying problems with Burkee’s study are: first, errors concerning the time period discussed (and American Lutheran history in general); second, the lack of comprehension in regards to the theological arguments. It leads one to believe that Burkee does not have a firm grasp on the narrative and the theological issues of the conflict. His intense focus on the political parallels weakens and misleads his analysis in several places.

 

One erroneous claim that repeatedly occurs in the book is that Robert is the older brother of J.A.O. Preus! It is astounding that this error survived Burkee’s research into the topic, dissertation readers, and Augsburg Fortress editors. More serious is Burkee’s assertion that, “For much of its history, the LCMS enjoyed “fellowship” with one or more of the nation’s major Lutheran church bodies” (11). Historically, this is an indefensible statement. The Missouri Synod was in fellowship with the ALC from 1969 to 1981, however, 12 years hardly make up “much of its history”. And lest you think Burkee is referring to the Wisconsin Synod or other groups which were in the Synodical Conference, in the very next sentence he refers to the WELS as “a minor body.”

 

He grossly mischaracterizes the conservative response to the Social Gospel, civil rights, and their overall understanding of Christian charity. Burkee writes, “To Otten and his followers, one could not demonstrate the love of Christ through actions; it had to be spoken (apparently, spoken only)” (59). I would like to see this straw man produced, as I have never met a real person who has ever fallen into such an absurd false dichotomy. Ironically, Otten is shown to have a more complex position in the very next sentence when quoted saying, “the primary work of the Church is to preach the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Richard Klann in Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church[iii] goes so far as to say, “Members of the churches should assume responsibilities for social action in accordance with their callings, opportunities and abilities.” While commenting on Otten’s statement that, “Christians are to obey the laws of their government,” he claims that Otten was “reviving the pre-Brown vs. Board of Education doctrine of obedience” (59). We may safely assume that Otten, as a Lutheran pastor, had St. Paul more in mind.

 

Burkee’s weakness in historical theology is most clearly seen in his reaction to church politics:

 

Richard Koenig had dubbed the “conservative reaction” in Missouri a gathering of “fearful” men: I fully expected allusions to Nixon, but I did not expect this cloak-and-dagger, Deep Throat dynamic, surely not in a conservative Christian church (4).

 

It is not pleasant to think about church politics, especially dirty politics. And sin ought to be scandalous to the believer; it should not be glossed over. However, for a fuller historical perspective, one ought to remember the extensive church politics during every age of the church. There always has and always will be church politics this side of glory. And speaking of “cloak-and-dagger” shenanigans, consider what the Arian and the orthodox sides were willing to do, or call on the secular rulers to do, in order to stand victorious in their struggle. The partisans of that particular conflict make J.A.O. Preus and John Teitjen look like boy scouts. A student, much less a scholar, of historical theology cannot afford a naïve picture of the church militant.

 

Appropriation of the Liberal/Moderate Narrative of the Conflict

 

In a book that is presented in contrast to the “emotional, partisan, and triumphalist works” written thus far, it is disappointing to find a capitulation to the liberal/moderate meta-narrative of the conflict and overtly hostile jabs (many gratuitous) against the conservative side.

 

Burkee’s acceptance of the liberal/moderate narrative of the conflict is seen in a variety of places, yet a few examples will suffice. While describing the lead up to the conflict, he refers to “[Missouri’s] isolationist legacy,” which is a common, yet ahistorical, view of Missouri’s past made by liberals/moderates (20). Along the same lines, he makes an unsubstantiated claim that, “Anti-intellectualism resonated with some Missouri Synod pastors because until recently its seminaries had not encouraged intellectualism.” This serious charge is made without rationale or proof, and ought not be irresponsibly tossed about as if it were self evident.

 

Following the classic storyline of the liberal/moderate partisans, he considers that “[t]he years bracketing World War II had been the glory days for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.” The years following the conflict were “an era of chronic decline,” and, “a once-thriving church poised for growth had become an also-ran, struggling for existence and relevance” (2, 182). It is true that the Missouri Synod has declined in membership since the conflict. However, an in-depth analysis, including more than the scanty data Burkee offers, is required for this bleak description. (The most obvious explanation of Missouri’s declining membership isn’t even mentioned: Missouri Synod Lutherans are not having children at a rate anywhere near that they were a half century ago!) Throughout his book, Burkee heavily relies upon insights from Mary Todd and Richard Koenig to shape the narrative and guide his analysis. He also highlights Ralph Bohlmann’s influence by thanking him for “sage counsel” in the Preface (xv). When one follows such a pattern, one can hardly be considered nonpartisan.

 

One is truly disappointed to find salacious and unnecessary descriptions of conservatives littered throughout the narrative. Burkee engages in pop psychology when he states that “[Hermann] Otten was rapidly developing a messiah complex…” (36). And I still am not quite sure what was meant to be conveyed by calling David Scaer the “seminary altar boy” (34).  On the same page, “a bright young graduate,” “quick-minded [Martin] Marty,” makes mince meat out of the outclassed President Behnken in a debate. At times the descriptions of conservative figures seem purposefully cruel. William F. Beck, an expert in biblical languages, author of numerous books, and former professor at Concordia Seminary, is described as, “an eccentric Otten enthusiast who worked in a freezing office to keep his mind alert, translating the Bible with fingerless gloves and without socks” (169). This is an utterly unnecessary description that does not advance any germane point, but is merely gratuitous. The conflict does not need sensationalizing, it is dramatic enough already.

 

Perhaps the biggest “cheap shot” in the volume comes from Martin Marty while describing the conservatives in his Foreword:

 

To the surprise of no one who follows plots like this in religion or politics, Burkee follows the parties and plotters in statu nascendi as they gain in power through unitive activity that almost instantly gives way to factions fighting over the division of the spoils. It is not a happy story; there are side-glances at the divorces, alcoholism, perhaps abuse that colored the biography of significant participants, though Burkee does not exploit his knowledge of these.

 

This is like alluding to the oft-bemoaned, high rate of divorce and sexual misconduct of the former Missourians in the ELCA, so as to paint with broad strokes a dark and sinister background, before telling the wretched tale of theological deviancy in the Missouri Synod. The weakest shot also came from Marty when he writes,

 

[Burkee] concentrates on the theology, motives, and strategies of the conservative party. His range is wide, but what will be striking to the reader is how little gospel, good news, or anything positive shows up in the documentation on their side. I have asked some readers of the dissertation and asked myself with this book in hand, is there, even once, a paragraph or a couple lines that could be described as “spiritual,” “evangelical,” or “positive”?

 

To judge the conservative theological movement in the Missouri Synod by the testimony in one book, focused on the context and not the theology, is irresponsible and unscholarly. A cursory glance at the hundreds of articles, books, and sermons written by the conservatives quickly disabuses any fair-minded reader of such an unwarranted conclusion.

 

So Why Has Hermann Otten Promoted this book?

 

The answer to this question is simple. Hermann Otten comes out ahead of, and far better off, than those he has for a long time has termed “the organized conservatives.” Otten is given grudging respect from Burkee who contrasts him with many other conservative figures as one ready to do open battle against liberals. Furthermore, Burkee unquestioningly identifies him as the “most significant figure in modern LCMS history.” Otten is shrewd enough to know that this volume is not going to change anyone’s mind about the theological issues, nor does it even openly attempt to do so. Liberals/moderates will still hold him in contempt, and there is no doubt that his conservative enemies won’t be changing their minds anytime soon. But in Burkee’s book, he certainly gains some vindication, particularly concerning two points that he has hammered away on for decades. First, he and Christian News cannot be ignored by any serious historical investigation or conversation concerning the Seminex conflict and the modern Missouri Synod. And second, that many of the “organized conservatives” have indeed used him and acted duplicitously.

 

Where Do Your Loyalties Lie?

 

While considering the theology of Seminex in his review of Burkee’s book at LutheranForum.org, Paul Hinlicky finds precisely the right tone for analyzing the conflict, even if he hits the wrong note:

 

If Preus’s brand of Machiavellian duplicity and abuse in tandem with Herman Otten’s xenophobic, racist, sexist, crude, and vulgar extremism—amply documented from the horse’s mouth in Burkee’s book—was what one actually got from self-righteous upholders of the “third use of the Law,” we can and should cut Schroeder and his “Gospel reductionism” some slack. Indeed, Schroeder and his colleagues were right on all the major issues: biblical criticism is a fact of life today every bit as much as the heliocentric solar system; social justice is a gospel concern, if we are with the Bible preaching the gospel of the kingdom, not Gnostic flight to heaven for a handful of true believers; the ordination of women is matter of Christian freedom and missiological judgment; at the heart of Lutheran theology is the justification of the ungodly in the resurrection of the Crucified, the righteousness of God that prevails wherever and whenever the Spirit raises those dead to God to repentance and faith; the church is there wherever this message is effectively at work, thus the Gospel is the actual basis for ecumenical endeavor to overcome Christian disunity by a process of doctrinal dialogue admitting of degrees of fellowship. Moreover, when one contrasts these positions with what Burkee uncovers as the actual alternative being advocated at the time in the yellow journalism of Otten’s Christian News, namely, of “John Birch society extremism,” one can understand the provocation my teachers felt, and forgive, or at least contextualize, the one-sidedness of Seminex theology [iv]  (emphasis mine).

 

Except in the sterile and sectarian world of liberal and slightly less liberal Lutheranism, it is clear that the conservatives in the Missouri Synod were right on all the major issues: God’s Word does not lie; the primary work of the church is the proclamation of the Gospel in its purity for the sake of sinners; the ordination of women is a Gnostic absurdity in clear violation of the Holy Scriptures; false ecumenism based upon compromising the truth for the sake of outward harmony is always an enemy of true Christian unity.

 

I doubt a definitive history of the Seminex conflict, encompassing the theology, context, and major players of the period, will ever be written. In a couple decades, few will care about the plots, lies, and intimate stories of the parties involved. As with many defining struggles in the church, distance gives helpful perspective. The personalities, personal failings, and delicate details will fade and give focus to what was at the heart of the conflict- theology. Kurt Marquart’s account, Anatomy of an Explosion, will remain the definitive theological analysis of the conflict. His work will stand the test of time because Lutherans will be the only ones who will care about the studying the conflict, and they will not find a more faithful guide to the issues at stake.

 

What is a Churchman?

 

Is a churchman a man who is above the politicking and the muck of living in the church militant? If we take the example of our fathers in faith seriously, we see that those “churchmen” fought hard, and yes, and sometimes dirty. We should call their sin, when they fell into it, sin. We should not emulate their “less than stellar moments.” But life in the church militant looks much more like a turf war than a U.N. peace treaty. And this is a good thing since turf wars actually accomplish something! The failings of our forefathers ought not be swept under a rock or explained away, just as the failings of older and greater saints were not. But Lutherans can no more throw the conservatives of the Seminex era under the bus for their sins than we could throw Abraham, David, Peter, Athanasius, or Luther under the bus.

 

The Missouri Synod conflict of mid-century was (and still is) fundamentally about theology, about what we confess concerning the Living God. That is the primary reason why churchmen ought to continue to study it. Men in the Missouri Synod who sought to teach against the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were fought by sinners who loved their Lord.

 

Doctrine is decided by the Word if God, yet historical observations many times point in the right direction, if you have the ears to listen. Surveying the modern Lutheran landscape ought to leave little doubt concerning the consequences of the beliefs espoused decades ago in the Missouri Synod. A parting question for those who wrestle with their evaluation of this conflict: As the chosen paths of the parties become further sundered, whose descendents, biological and theological, will remain Christians? If you can answer that question, you know where your loyalties lie concerning the great mid-twentieth century conflict in the Missouri Synod, commonly known as Seminex.  

 

David Ramirez is Pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, Lincoln, IL


[i] John Warwick Montgomery, “Theological Issues and Problems of Biblical Interpretation in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod,” in John Warwick Montgomery, ed., Crisis in Lutheran Theology: Volume I (Grand Rapids: MI: Baker Book House, 1967), 104.

[ii] Erich Kiehl and Waldo Werning, eds., Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church (Chicago: Lutheran Congress), 1970.

[iii] Richard Klann, "Shaping Society-Social Action," in Erich Kiehl and Waldo Werning, eds., Evangelical Directions for the Lutheran Church (Chicago: Lutheran Congress, 1970), 34.

[iv] Paul Hinlicky, “A Book That Could Change American Lutheran History,” January 22, 2011. http://www.lutheranforum.org/book-reviews/a-book-that-could-change-american-lutheran-history/  (accessed March 12, 2011).

Book Review: Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod

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Book Review of James C. Burkee's Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict that Changed American Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). 272 pages. Hardcover. Review by Martin Noland.

 

Martin Luther once said that a historian must be a “first-rate man who has a lion’s heart, unafraid to write the truth. For the greater number write in such a way that they readily pass over or put the best construction on the vices and deficiencies of their own times in the interest of their lords or friends and in turn glorify all too highly some trifling or vain virtue. . . . In that way histories become extremely unreliable and God’s work is shamefully obscured, as the Greeks are accused of doing and as the pope’s flatterers have done up to now and still do. In the end it comes down to this that one does not know what one should believe. Thus the noble, fine, and loftiest use of histories is ruined and they become nothing but bearers of gossip.” (AE 34:277).

 

Although the book Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod by James Burkee has some merits and usefulness, it would not pass the muster of Luther’s criteria. Burkee glorifies the “vain virtues” (Luther’s term) of the academic world over against the Missouri Synod’s alleged “anti-intellectualism” (Burkee, pp. 69, 70, & 72). One wonders whether Burkee wrote “in the interest of his lords or friends” (Luther’s term), since the book is a matter of personal interest to Martin Marty, who has been constantly attacked by Herman Otten’s Christian News (pp. 57 & 62; see also Marty’s foreword). Much of this book is little more than gossip, as one person being interviewed tells juicy stories and anecdotes about his enemy, and vice versa. All these characteristics of Burkee’s book result in exactly what Luther predicted, namely, that “the noble, fine, and loftiest use of histories is ruined.”

 

Having said that, I want to thank Dr. Burkee for telling the inside story of the Missouri Synod’s conservative leadership in more than a cursory way. When I was appointed director of the Concordia Historical Institute in 2002, I realized that someone had better get this story soon, before the leading characters were all deceased. Burkee is correct to note that most of the conservative leaders were reluctant to talk about their story. My impression, in talking with some of those former synodical leaders, is that they felt that what needed to be said had already been published. Anything more, they said, would simply be rubbing salt into old wounds on both sides of the conflict. After hearing this from many, I agreed that this was the kind and Christian thing to do.

 

Not all of the characters in this story had this attitude. Burkee lets his readers know up front that he was granted hours of interviews by protagonists Herman Otten, Waldo Werning, and Ralph Bohlmann (p. xv). Burkee also lets his readers know that “In this book I rely heavily on quotation” (p. 14). That is both the forte and the weakness of this book. It is the forte, because the quotes provide eye-witness testimony from the perspective of those interviewed. It is the weakness, because Burkee does not indicate to what extent, or for what reason, the people he interviewed might be biased or be distorting their testimony.

 

The biggest offenders in this respect are the testimonies that give unfavorable reports of what someone else did or said. How do we know that Rev. Pfarrherr (a hypothetical example), who was heavily committed to the liberal cause, did not distort what a conservative did or said; or vice versa? When an early draft of this book was released publicly, there was a flurry of activity as many people mentioned in the book said, “I didn’t say that” and “I didn’t do that.” So whom should we believe? How can we determine the truth between two conflicting stories? That is the essential problem with “gossip.” It can never provide grounds for writing an objective history. Maybe Burkee didn’t intend to write objective history. If not, then what is it?

 

I am not going to give a detailed list of what I think are errors or misguided interpretations in Burkee’s book, though there are many. I will limit myself to a critique of three central themes in his book. First, that Herman Otten was the father of conservatism in the Missouri Synod and its single most influential leader before 1969 (pp. 6-9). Second, that conservatism in the Missouri Synod was as much about cultural and political issues as about theology (pp. 4-5, 12-15). Third, the conclusion that the conflicts in this period were the cause of the Missouri Synod’s statistical decline (pp. 182-183).

 

With regard to the first theme, Otten was hardly the father of Missouri Synod conservatism. The synod was established as a conservative religious organization right from the start. Look at its founding primary purpose “to conserve and promote the unity of the true faith” (LCMS Constitution III.1). In Theodore Tappert’s classic Lutheran Confessional Theology in America 1840-1880 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), Tappert exhibited the treatises of C.F.W. Walther as “The Conservative Posture” among other Lutherans. With rare exceptions, the laymen and clergy of the Missouri Synod were religious, moral, and social conservatives from its founding up until the start of the postwar period in the United States. Whether they were politically conservative is another matter—and difficult to determine—primarily because the meaning of “American political conservatism” has changed several times in the Missouri Synod’s 160 year history.

 

Burkee gives the impression that the Missouri Synod would not have known about the liberalism at the Concordia Seminary in Saint Louis without Otten’s efforts. This gives too much credit to Otten and demonstrates that Burkee does not understand the social character of the synod. My mother’s family has been LCMS for six generations. Without reading Christian News, they knew early in the 1960s that something was wrong at the seminary.

 

One of my cousins, who was a student at Saint Louis, came home for Christmas in the 1960s arguing that many historical accounts in the Bible were myths. My father, a layman, was unable to convince my cousin otherwise, even though my dad had superior arguments. One of my uncles, who was an LCMS pastor, had constant problems with a neighboring LCMS campus minister—a 1960s Saint Louis graduate—who didn’t believe any doctrine of the Christian faith. By the middle 1960s, my LCMS relatives knew that the Saint Louis seminary was destroying the faith of its students and that it intended to change the faith of the whole church-body.

 

You might say that this was just the experience of our family. But the Missouri Synod is a small place; at least it used to be. We Missourians were a tightly knit social organization, due to our parochial schools, the old Walther League, and the former tendency for German-Americans to marry each other. News traveled quickly by word of mouth at semi-annual family gatherings about events and trends in the church. Older pastors talked for hours at their semi-annual district conferences and monthly circuit gatherings, both with their friends and with the newer pastors fresh out of the seminary.

 

Thus the laymen and pastors of the synod didn’t need Christian News to know that something had really changed for the worse at the Saint Louis seminary by the end of the 1960s. Before the advent of Affirm in 1970, concerned laymen and pastors relied on Christian News to provide the details of what was being taught at the seminary and why it was wrong. For that service, Herman Otten has his place in Lutheran history.

 

Herman Otten is not an enigma, if you get to know him. I know Pastor Otten. He is Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Captain Ahab was maimed for life by the white whale. Otten was vocationally maimed for life by the “white whale” of Concordia Seminary. The result was that, for Otten, Concordia Seminary became “the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them . . . he pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil . . . were visibly personified and made practically assailable in” Concordia Seminary (quotes from Moby-Dick).

 

With regard to the second theme, Burkee is right that political and social issues affected the debates and the conflicts in the Missouri Synod in this period of its history. But he doesn’t seem to understand that open advocacy for issues in secular politics were a new and upsetting thing for the synod. The Missouri Synod had followed the pattern of traditional Lutheranism by being politically passive, i.e., the church’s officers, agencies, and clergy avoided political partisanship or advocacy.

 

Lutheran laymen were free, of course, to vote their conscience or interests and be involved in the political process as they pleased. It was a great matter of pride if a Lutheran layman became a mayor or congressman, as it still is today. But the LCMS clergy traditionally did not tell such officers of the state what to do, and vice versa. Each knew their place, based on the Lutheran doctrine of the two-kingdoms. Even Reinhold Niebuhr, neither conservative nor Lutheran, understood the moral ambiguity of the political enterprise.

 

So when the editors of the Lutheran Witness “promoted racial progress and ecumenism with increasing frequency after 1960s,” (Burkee, p. 47), this was something new and suspect. In the Witness, LCMS clergy, officers, and agencies were telling Lutheran statesmen what to do and were trying to rally the electorate to the causes of the synodical elite. This was politics, pure and simple. Whether or not one thinks their political causes were good, it opened the door for secular politics as a source of conflict within the church.

 

When Herman Otten saw what the Lutheran Witness was doing, he replied with his own political opinions. Most LCMS conservatives found Otten’s journalistic ethics and political opinions noisome, and his opinions on the Jewish people particularly reprehensible. That is the reason that the synod’s conservatives formed other organizations and other news sources, beginning in 1964.

 

Burkee’s biggest failure in this matter is the inability to distinguish between political and theological conservatism. As a result, his interpretive model distorts what really happened in this period of synodical history.

 

With regard to the third theme, the statistical decline of the Missouri Synod, compared to conservative Evangelical churches (pp. 182-183), is a complex matter caused by any number of factors. Burkee should know better than to blame decline just on the 1960s and 1970s conflict. Let me mention ten factors that may be contributing to statistical decline:

 

1) The declining birth-rate and emigration out of the Midwest counties where 85% of the synod is located.

 

2) The declining birth-rate and emigration out of Lutheran-majority counties, where marriages are most likely to produce Lutheran families.

 

3) The movement of Lutheran populations in metropolitan areas, from the old German-Scandinavian-Baltic-Slovak compact “neighborhoods” to the scattered suburbs, which has affected the viability of parochial schools and weekday activities.

 

4) The decreased emphasis in the synod on the parochial school, in general, and specifically as a tool of catechesis, evangelism, and socialization.

 

5) The increased mobility of the US population has worked against the Lutheran way of socialization, which traditionally relied on a non-transient population; while the conservative Evangelicals’ approach to socialization is optimized for a transient population.

 

6) The LCMS, like other Midwest-based denominations, has been reluctant to intentionally shift its resources (manpower, money, etc.) to those regions in the US where the population is growing; instead, the trend has been to devote those resources to build huge churches at the outskirts of Midwestern cities, which are really only attracting LCMS people moving out from the urban and old suburban areas (e.g., Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Saginaw, Fort Wayne, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Saint Paul, Saint Louis, and Kansas City).

 

7) Lutherans are not supported by the plethora of para-church organizations like the conservative Evangelicals and Catholics. Evangelical bookstores, Evangelical radio, Evangelical revivals, and Evangelical movements are sapping the membership of Lutheran churches, often with the consent of Lutheran pastors.

 

8) Many liberals did not leave with Seminex, but continued to fight against conservative leaders and traditional Lutheran theology, especially through organizations such as Lutherans Alive, Jesus First, Renewal in Missouri, Daystar, and sometimes the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau. After the formation of the AELC in 1976, John Tietjen estimated that 950 congregations remained in the LCMS which continued to sympathize with Seminex and its ideology (see John Tietjen, Memoirs in Exile [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990], 269). This fight has sapped morale and energy in the LCMS for over 35 years.

 

9) Many LCMS circuits, which are supposed to be support networks for pastors and other church-workers, are sources of conflict and discouragement because of the ongoing fight between liberals and conservatives. This too saps morale and energy.

 

10) The growing conservative Evangelical churches have not suffered twenty-five years of assault on their creedal ideas, from WITHIN their organization, as the Missouri Synod suffered from 1945 to 1974. I define “creedal ideas” as the doctrines and practices that distinguish a church from its rivals and competitors. In addition, the synod has continued to suffer sniper attacks on its creedal ideas since 1974. There has been no peace; and apparently there will not be peace, until the last Seminex sympathizer passes from the scene.

 

I was disappointed by this book. Burkee makes an almost convincing case that secular politics is what drove the conflict in the Missouri Synod, but those of us who lived through it know better. It will only convince the ignorant. With regard to his argument that characters on both side of the conflict were fighting for personal power and prestige—I have no doubt of that. That happens in every church fight, even at the congregational level. But I know many of the characters personally.  The majority of them got involved only to defend their church and the Word of God; a few had less noble motives.

 

Finally, it appears that James Burkee, his dissertation readers at Northwestern University, Martin Marty, and the editors at Fortress Press were so committed to discrediting the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod that they set aside the normal rules for the historical criticism of sources. No small irony there.

 

Martin R. Noland is Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Evansville, Indiana

Assisi III—Kyrie eleison! An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI

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Assisi III—Kyrie eleison!

An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI from a frater sejunctus parvulus

(1 Th 5:22)

(Martyrdom of Polycarp, 9)

Your Holiness,

A brief announcement you made on New Year’s Day has filled me with such foreboding that I am prompted to dispatch a letter in your direction. Given your seniority to me in age and office, and my respect for your distinguished theological oeuvre, I approach you in a humble and irenic spirit and affirm my willingness to retract any inaccurate statements I might unwittingly make.

Since it is unlikely that a missive from an obscure teaching theologian on a distant continent, sent by “snail mail,” would land atop the bulky pile of correspondence that doubtless daily lands on your desk, I am having recourse to the device of an “Open Letter” released in the form of a blog post. Because the topic to be addressed is a matter of common knowledge affecting the spiritual health of all of Christendom, it seems appropriate to raise it in a public forum.

Mindful of the danger of breaking the eighth commandment and of rushing to judgment without having ascertained all the facts involved, I nevertheless fail to see how, given the fateful, undeletable precedents set by your predecessor, the late Pope John Paul II, at the interfaith gatherings over which he presided at Assisi in 1986 and 2002 (to which we may refer as Assisi I and Assisi II respectively), it will be possible, even for someone of your intellectual ability, to avoid committing (or appearing to commit), at the upcoming interconfessional—and interfaith—get-together in Assisi, acts of dreadful infidelity to Christ our Lord to whom, as St. Paul bears witness, the Una Sancta has been betrothed in Holy Baptism (2 Cor 11:2). Of course, if you have in mind for the agenda of the planned assembly an exposition of some edifying words that featured yesterday (11 January) in a volume of meditations selected from your writings, Assisi III will be a springboard for the “new evangelization,” rendering this communication redundant. It is unlikely, though, that representatives of non-Christian religions would travel from the ends of the earth to listen to you explaining how:

Respect for human dignity and regard for the human rights of every individual—these are the fruits of belief in the Incarnation of God. That is why belief in Jesus Christ is the basis of all progress. Anyone who renounces belief in Jesus Christ for the sake of a supposedly higher value renounces the basis of human dignity. It is from this Christian humanism, from the humanism of the Incarnation, that the uniqueness of Christian culture has evolved. All its specific characteristics are fundamentally rooted in belief in the Incarnation and disintegrate when this belief is lost.[1]

It has been widely reported that, in your days as Cardinal Prefect, you were troubled[2] by the blatant syncretism enacted under your predecessor’s eye and with his blessing at Assisi I, when, among many other acts in breach of the First Commandment, an idol of the Buddha was placed atop a tabernacle (!) to receive veneration from followers of the Eastern religion named after him. I have gleaned from your Truth and Tolerance (a volume that speaks so powerfully to contemporary, secularist Canada in its forgetfulness of lower and upper case truth) that, while you affirm the appropriateness of interfaith dialogue, you differ from your predecessor in drawing the line at the practice of interreligious prayer.[3] Have I been wrong to believe that you dissent from the approval and encouragement of interfaith, syncretistic prayer that John Paul II voiced in his first encyclical and went on to put into practice at Assisi I and Assisi II?[4]

I marvel at the skill displayed by Your Holiness in the first volume of your Jesus of Nazareth, where you summarized and responded to the three reasons set forth by Rabbi Jacob Neusner to explain why he would not have followed our Lord had he been present at the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount.[5] You set all members of the guild of Christian theologians a powerful and moving example as you made the good confession, while treating the rabbi himself with exquisite courtesy. In this book you have winsomely shown how, as St. Matthew sets forth our Lord as the “Torah in person,” the first Gospel attests the divinity of Christ no less vigorously than does St. John in the fourth; and all Christians are in your debt for your in-depth exposition of the passage to which you refer as the messianischer Jubelruf (“messianic joyful shout”),[6] which is sometimes known in Anglo-Saxon scholarship as the “Johannine thunderbolt in the synoptic skies.”

Remarkably, as you deal with the Johannine witness, you defend the authenticity (i.e., the ascription to the earthly Jesus) of those logia (the “I am” statements) in which our Lord manifestly employs the sacred tetragrammaton in the first person[7] and whose trustworthiness is dismissed by many exegetes. The bearing of these binding passages on the issue of religious syncretism is obvious.

As you simultaneously showered courtesy upon Rabbi Neusner while declining to give away the store (a feat that few theologians could carry off with such aplomb), so you are likely the only man on earth who could possibly gather representatives from all world religions together at Assisi and not commit blatant acts of syncretism that would nullify the good confession you have made in Jesus of Nazareth and (to name only one of your many other writings) in the section of your Principles of Catholic Theology where you politely but definitively demolish Karl Rahner’s notion of the “anonymous Christian.”[8]

Having conceded this point, I beg Your Holiness to consider two factors.

First, in your scholarly refutations of Rabbi Neusner and Fr. Rahner, you operate on a lofty professorial level accessible to relatively few, and you exercise a nimble subtlety whose nuances are lost on the man in the street. Given that your every utterance is apt to be twisted into its opposite within moments of its issuance by a hostile press and an academic (and to some extent ecclesiastical) establishment that have long been baying for your blood, please bear in mind how the media will interpret your anticipated mingling with the representatives of other religions at Assisi this coming autumn: “Pope pushes the unity and equality of all religions!” Neither the press nor the average person will read and heed the fine print of any address(es) you may give in Assisi. The heart of Jesus once pierced and now pulsing with love for us will not rejoice over the caption I have just pictured.

Secondly, your decision to begin the first volume of your Jesus of Nazareth by showing how our Lord is the Prophet greater than Moses whose coming was predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15[9] would surely have as its corollary that, however much you urge the followers of other religions to join with Christians in promoting outward, civil peace among and within the nations of the world,[10] you would scrupulously avoid any words or gestures that may imply that our blessed Lord is but one among many “prophets” or “founders of religions” or that other religions are valid and viable paths to salvation. After all, Moses pronounced stern judgement against those of the people to whom the Prophet above all prophets was sent “who will not give heed to my words, which he shall speak in my name” (Deut 18:19; a judgment that surely falls also on those among the nations who despise the gospel proclaimed by the church). A learned fellow countryman of yours has, without personal rancour and with great (even ecumenical) charity and on the basis of much evidence, made a strong case to the effect that your much loved predecessor had (to say the least) a diminished appreciation of the effects of original sin on human nature, with the result that he even pictured non-Christian religions as proceeding from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and deemed them to be effective vehicles of salvation.[11]

Given your expert demolition of Rahner’s idea of the “anonymous Christian,” and taking those pages of your Principles in tandem with the first part of the declaration Dominus Iesous of 2000 and the confession you have made in the first volume of your Jesus of Nazareth, I have the impression that moves to equalize the truth claims of the various religions and to acknowledge the non-Christian religions as valid paths to salvation would contradict the motif of the “hermeneutic of continuity” that you have stressed as an essential key for rightly understanding the Second Vatican Council. Moreover, some words you wrote in 1966 encourage me to think that any repetition of Assisi I and II would stand in sharp contradiction to your most deeply held convictions:

What pushed the great missionaries out into the world at the beginning of the modern age and filled them with holy disquiet was the awareness that salvation exists only in Christ and that the immeasurable millions of men who suddenly cropped up on the horizon from unknown worlds are delivered without rescue to eternal destruction apart from the message that weighs upon believers as a sacred imperative. …In the meantime an idea has increasingly prevailed, which was previously seen only as a rare exception, that God will and can save also outside the Church, even if not ultimately without her. An optimistic understanding of the world religions has lately been set forth in this regard, the consideration of which surely once again makes clear that not all favourite thoughts of modern theology have the stamp of biblical approval. For if anything may be called alien, indeed opposed to Holy Scripture, it is the contemporary optimism with respect to the religions of the peoples, the optimism that conceives these religions as factors for salvation and that cannot be squared with the way they are appraised in the Bible.[12]

It is reported that, at Assisi II in 2002, crucifixes were removed from (or, if immovable, veiled in) the rooms made available for non-Christian prayer. Just as we could not picture St. Paul consenting to this gesture (Gal 3:1), so we could not imagine St. Peter, in his bold post-Pentecostal preaching, proclaiming salvation as a given for the unevangelized, transmitted to them already by either the pagan cults of the Graeco-Roman world or even by Judaism inasmuch as it failed to heed the Prophet announced in Deuteronomy 18:15, who entered this world at Bethlehem.

Mindful of the danger of prejudging the event you are contemplating for October of this year, and with respect and gratitude for what you have given through your research, teaching, and writing not only to the Roman Catholic Church but to Christendom as a whole, and with the prayer that the Lord would continue to bring forth good fruits from your ministry as Bishop of Rome, yet supremely conscious of the need for all of us to emulate St. Polycarp in remaining faithful despite all pressure to our Lord and the one gospel issued from heaven for our salvation, I beg and implore Your Holiness not to “flee” from the good confession “for fear of the wolves” who, as you have indicated, threaten the integrity of every confession and segment of Holy Christendom.[13]

Gott befohlen.

John Stephenson

St Catharines, Ontario

Wednesday in the Octave of the Epiphany of our Lord, 12 January 2011

[1] Joseph Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year, Irene Grassl ed., (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 18f.

[2] In a work published in 2003 (and issued the following year in English translation), you spoke circumspectly of “undeniable dangers.” Joseph Ratzinger: Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004),107.

[3] See Truth and Tolerance, 99-106. Putting the best construction on the actions of John Paul II, you distinguish between “multireligious prayer,” which “cannot be the normal form of religious life ...[since it] almost inevitably leads to false interpretations, to indifference as to the content of what is believed or not believed, and thus to the dissolution of real faith” (107; hardly a ringing endorsement on your part) and “interreligious prayer.” As you argue cogently against the latter in all circumstances, you insist that “no impression should be given [to non-Christians] that ‘religions’ are interchangeable, that the basics of Christian belief are not of ultimate significance and thus replaceable. To avoid misleading people in such ways demands that the Christian’s faith in the uniqueness of God and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ the Savior of all mankind be not obscured for the non-Christian” (109). Amen.

[4] http://www.kreuz.net/article.2645.html

[5] Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (Doubleday, 2007), 103-122.

[6] Jesus of Nazareth, 339-344.

[7] Jesus of Nazareth, 345-355.

[8] Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, tr. Mary Frances McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 162-171.

[9] Jesus of Nazareth, 1-8.

[10] While declining to practice fellowship with deniers of the real presence, Luther foreshadowed the political developments of later centuries as he attested how “In civil matters we are glad to be one with them, i.e., to maintain outward, temporal peace” (AE 37:27; WA 23. 84: 32f.; That These Words of Christ, “This Is My Body,” Etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 1527). Yet despite the continuing doctrinal disagreements between the several confessions and the many sins of the members of Christ’s mystical body here on earth, no constituent part of Holy Christendom currently poses a threat to outward, civil peace between or within the nations of the world. Although lethal Hindu militancy has brought about martyrdoms of Christians in India in recent years, all sober observers are aware that Psalm 44:22, as referred to by St. Paul in Romans 8:36, is now being fulfilled through the increasing slaughter of Christians of all confessions under the aegis (and it appears with the widespread approval) of but one of the religions of the world.

[11] Heinz-Lothar Barth seems to demonstrate conclusively that the Assisi aberrations represented no “one-time going off the rails” on your predecessor’s part. Papst Johannes Paul II. Santo subito? Ein kritischer Rückblick auf sein Pontifikat (Dettelbach: Sanctus Verlag, 2007), 113.  Especially troubling is the catechesis for 9 September 1998: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_09091998_en.html . Barth argues that the late Pope based his positive assessment of the salvific potential of other religions on a view akin to Rahner’s thesis “that man in his existence …is always already within this [saving] relationship [with God] whether he is explicitly aware of it or not,” a proposition that you refute in your Principles (Principles, 165). Barth quotes from a homily delivered by the then Cardinal Woytyla before Paul VI, which proclaims how “the Church of the living God unites all men who share in this wonderful transcendence of the human spirit in one or the other way” (Papst Johannes Paul II, 115). The context of this statement makes clear that Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and also unbelievers partake in this vaguely conceived “transcendence.” If Barth’s analysis should stand, then Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa’s disturbing homily of Good Friday 2002 faithfully represents the mind of the Roman magisterium. See John R. Stephenson, “Reflections on the Malum Syncretisticum,” Logia XIII, 2 (Eastertide 2002): 17. I draw to your attention and invite your comment on how the Toronto Jesuit Tibor Horvath has interpreted chapter 16 of Lumen Gentium, Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in terms compatible with the drift of Assisi I and II: “Therefore, non-Christian religions too belong to the Church and can become the vehicle of Christ’s grace.” Jesus Christ as Ultimate Reality and Meaning: A Contribution to the Hermeneutics of Counciliar Theology (Toronto: Association of Concern for Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 1994), 49.

[12] Joseph Ratzinger, Die letzte Sitzungsperiode des Konzils (Cologne, 1966), 59f.; quoted in Barth, 132f. Cf Hermann Sasse, “Salvation outside the Church? In piam memoriamAugustin Cardinal Bea,” Reformed Theological Review 28 (Jan/Apr 1969): 1-16; available also in German translation as “Heil außerhalb der Kirche? In piam memoriam Augustin Kardinal Bea,” in In Statu Confessionis, Friedrich Wilhelm Hopf ed. (Berlin & Schleswig-Holstein: Verlag Die Spur GMBH & Co., 1976) II: 315-327.

[13] Joseph Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion, Stephan Otto Horn & Vinzenz Pfnür eds., tr. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 267-269. A remark you make in the essay in question (“On the Ecumenical Situation”) is highly pertinent to Rahner’s “anonymous Christian” notion that appears to lie at the foundation of Assisi I and II, and one with which confessional Lutherans (in Your Holiness’ homeland those of my co-religionists of the konkordienlutherisch kind) are apt to agree: “We cannot put philosophical profundity in the place of the word that has been uttered and the rationality proper to it. God has spoken—if we think we know better, then we get lost in the darkness of our own opinions; we lose unity instead of moving toward it” (263f.).

Book Review: The Erlangen School of Theology: Its History, Teaching, and Practice

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A review of: The Erlangen School of Theology: Its History, Teaching, and Practice. By Lowell C. Green. Fort Wayne, Indiana: Lutheran Legacy Press, 2010. Review by Mark Mattes.

There is no question that Erlangen Theology has impacted North American Lutheran thinking. The wide reception of Werner Elert in the United States, for example, testifies to this. However, to my knowledge, there has been no comprehensive overview and evaluation of Erlangen Theology in English. Lowell Green provides this service in this book, a systematic and comprehensive study of the leading Erlangen theologians. Here one encounters the work of nineteenth-century giants such as Hofmann, Harless, Loehe, Delitzsch, Seeberg, and Zahn. We also encounter twentieth-century luminaries such as Elert, Althaus, Procksch, Sasse, Preuss, Maurer, von Loewenich, and Kuenneth, thinkers with whom Green himself studied in his graduate work at Erlangen from 1952-1955. There is no question that these theologians profoundly impacted Green’s personal theological development and he seeks critically and appreciatively to convey their work. From the start, he acknowledges weaknesses in their approaches, such as Hofmann’s inability to articulate that the atonement propitiates God’s wrath or Thomasius’ “kenotic Christology,” which weakens the union of Christ’s two natures; yet Green is convinced that the strengths of Erlangen Theology outweigh its weaknesses. Indeed, Green defends Erlangen theology as a resource to help Lutheranism not “dissipate within a flood of generic Protestantism” (23).

 

Erlangen Theology’s importance lies in the fact that in the mid-nineteenth-century it broke with the ideals of Protestant Liberalism that had challenged the authority of Scripture and the role of the Confessions as the true interpretation of salvation. For the Erlangen theologians, the Bible is the norm of theology and the Book of Concord is the true scriptural exposition of Christian doctrine (21). Green notes that these university theologians were the first in Germany to break with theological liberalism. They cut a path that sought to be faithful to Scripture and the Confessions, but the adequacy of these ways is mixed. Some were more successful at breaking with liberalism than others; many had a hard time shedding the Schleiermacherian tendency to ground theology in personal experience, even when they maintained that Scripture is the standard for truth in theology. Hence, Green notes that we cannot accept everything that they wrote (22).

For Green, Erlangen is best seen as a method and not an institution (28). As such, it was indebted to the nineteenth-century renewal movement (Erweckungsbewegung, 28), intense exegesis of the Scriptures, and the renewed study of Luther and the Lutheran Confessions. The reason why experience was important for these thinkers was that it was seen as an antidote to Rationalism’s reduction of truth to what reason can certify and science can verify. Given his upbringing in the American Lutheran Church (1930), Green is sensitive to how Erlangen Theology was critically received by the faculty at Wartburg Seminary, especially by J. Michael Reu and his disciples. Green notes that Erlangen Theology officially came to an end in 1969 when the Erlangen theological faculty voted that its faculty was no longer required to be committed to the Book of Concord (37).

Green’s critical reception of Erlangen Theology includes the following. First, early Erlangen theologians were concerned with liturgical renewal, responding to losses in liturgics due to Pietism and Rationalism. In particular, Hoefling is to be acknowledged for his work in liturgics. In spite of his improvements, he failed fully to affirm worship as primarily God’s service to us. Instead, he sought to balance the theme of sacrifice (our prayer and praise to God) with that of sacrament (God’s generous giving in word and sacrament). Also, he developed the transference theory of ministry, which assumes that all leadership rests in the people’s sovereignty and is delegated to leaders (79)—a view that seems to have its roots in the political philosophy of Rousseau.

Second, in response to traditional theories of the verbal inspiration of Scripture and as sensitive to the nineteenth-century insight that consciousness is historical, both Hoefling and Hofmann developed a theory of Heilsgeschichte, or saving history. In this perspective, it is not the Scripture itself that is verbally inspired but instead the self-revelation of God is found in history, to which Scripture bears witness. Following von Ranke’s theories about history, Hoffman claimed that history does nothing less than diachronically trace the steps of God in human affairs (111). For Hofmann, it is not Scripture itself that is inspired but instead Scripture’s content, the witness to God’s acts of deliverance of his people in history (113). In spite of his rejection of verbal inspiration, Hofmann counter-intuitively rejected much higher criticism (119).

With respect to inerrancy, Hofmann argued that it extends only to matters of faith and not historical or scientific affairs (121). In a critical assessment, Green notes that the Heilsgeschichte approach is indifferent to matters of law and gospel. Hofmann was blind to the fact that God works not only salvation but also condemnation and judgment in history. This error led him to deny that Christ’s atoning death was effectual because it bore God’s wrath. For Hofmann, Christ is a victim of his enemies, not a bearer of God’s anger against sin (124).

Third, Green faults Thomasius for following Melanchthon’s view of God that separates divine volition from divine knowledge, a view so very different from Luther’s in De servo arbitrio where this distinction is not made. Likewise, Green objects to Thomasius’ famous kenosis doctrine, in which God empties himself of his divinity in the incarnation of the Logos, because it cuts short Christ’s divinity (141). Green sees this attempt to describe the self-limiting of God the Son as a remnant of Rationalism (143, 145).

Fourth, Harless is credited with having retrieved Luther’s view of law and gospel (101) while Harnack is acknowledged for having rediscovered Luther’s view of the deus absconditus and the deus revelatus (169) as well as Luther’s view of God as above the law (deus ex lex) (170).

Fifth, with respect to Elert’s dogmatics, the term Schicksal or fate is best seen as referring to “givens” such as our hair or eye color and not some pagan connotation of fate (253). Elert rejected any political view of Christ as seen in Greek theology (258-60) and which creeps up in Barthian and political theologies where law and gospel are unified. Likewise his stance on closed communion is to be affirmed.

In conclusion, Green has done a remarkable task here, summarizing highly complicated material in a readable manner. Helpfully, the book includes a table of Erlangen works in English. If history had been different, and if Green had been called to the chair of systematic theology at Wartburg Seminary, how different today would the direction of that school be? What impact might it have had on The American Lutheran Church (1960) or the ELCA (1988)? There is no question that Green has critically evaluated the Erlangen theologians so as to see where they can augment confessional Lutheran theology and where confessional Lutherans need to back away from them.

Mark Mattes
Grand View University
Des Moines, Iowa

 

Attention please, new blog posts coming very soon!

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Just a note to say "Stay tuned!" and "Get ready!" because there will be some really great BLOGIA posts very soon that you will not want to miss, including a open letter in Web Forum to Pope Benedict XVI from a frater sejunctus parvulus, John Stephenson. Also coming up in Web Extras will be articles that we could not fit in the most recent journal, Lutheranism in Europe (vol. 20-1, Epiphany 2011) which is now available both in hard copy and electronic versions. Visit logia.org for more details.

Lutheranism in Europe

20-1Epiphany 2011, Volume XX, Number 1Table of Contents

(A feature article from the journal: Does Luther Have a Future in Germany? by Jobst Schöne)

If you give this question some thought, you will realize how difficult it is to give a reliable answer. We live in a constantly changing world. Beyond that, only a real prophet could make an accurate prognosis of Luther’s future in Germany — and I am no prophet. Under these circumstances I can only attempt to analyze the situation in which we find ourselves and draw some conclusions. In the end I will leave the prognosis more or less to you, and you may determine for yourself what to make of my presentation.

At any rate it will look more like a six-month weather forecast (that is, never accurate) than a solid statement. Right now nobody knows what will happen in the coming years and decades and how our churches will cope with and respond to the challenges before them. Before we go into any details concerning the situation in Germany, we should clarify what sort of “Luther” we have in mind and are discussing.

What “Luther” Do We Have in Mind?

Since the time of the Reformation there has been considerable change in the picture that people hold of Luther, the conception of what Lutheranism is all about, and the expectations of what to gain from the Reformation. In every age the Zeitgeist (a loanword in English, denoting the thought and feeling specific to a certain generation or period) has deeply influenced how Luther was accepted and adopted and how people wanted to see him. People always like to project their own ideas on a certain figure in history. Luther is one example. People wish him and his heritage to be the way they want. Rarely has there been a completely objective and impartial acceptance of Luther and his legacy. This fact is well-documented and demonstrated in the exhibition found today in the Luther House in Wittenberg, the former Augustinian monastery in which Luther lived for many years. Simply compare the pictures, portraits, and monuments of Luther from various periods, and you will notice that many of them portray not only Luther, but also the period when the display was constructed along with its feelings and conceptions of Luther. In some instances this is reflected in a quite revealing manner.

 

...read or download the rest of this article here (free, PDF)

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Reformation Vespers Sermon, Titus 3:4-7

by Erling Teigen, delivered at Bethany Lutheran College Chapel on October 28, 2010

Titus 3:4-7 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Martin was baptized. On November 11, 1483, the day after Martin was born, Hans Luder, his father, took his son to the church there in Eisleben to have him baptized. In happened to be Martinstag, after the saint, Martin of Tours, and so the name he was given was Martin.

 

Martin of Tours also was baptized, but not at the age of one day – rather at the age of 18. That Martin had not so pious a namesake, but was named after Mars, the Roman God of war. The boy, born in Hungary ten years before the Council of Nicea, served in the Roman army and was converted, as the story goes, after he gave his coat to a beggar, and then in a vision saw that the beggar was Christ. A turn in his life came when, no longer able to be faithful to his namesake, he refused to fight in a battle that was about to take place, with some irony, in the German city of Worms – a decisive place for both Martins. He entered a monastery, then became a priest, and finally, not a doctor of theology but a bishop. He too was something of a reformer – he worked earnestly to convert the heathen in Gaul and Germania, and fought especially hard for the Trinitarian faith against the Arianism of the Visigoths of eastern Germany. (We could also speak here of a third Martin, born November 9, 1522, likely baptized on November 11, and thus also called Martin – Martin Chemnitz.)

So, it is not without significance that in his baptism, the baby baptized in Eisleben on November 11, 1483 got the name of an earlier saint, who was a Christian in word and deed, and a defender of the faith, even though the name first came from a heathen god. In holy baptism our Lord takes the heathen, unbelieving natural man and washes away the sin, the guilt, and the unbelief in him and names him a saint to walk in newness of life.

According to God’s mercy, these boys were saved through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit…and being justified freely by God’s grace became heirs according to the hope of eternal life. And they lived under God’s promises made in baptism.

To live under one’s baptism is to trust that it is not by works of righteousness which we have done that we can stand before God, but that it is purely by God’s grace, the kindness and love of the Savior toward us. It means that by daily contrition and repentance, the old evil flesh is daily drowned in the waters of baptism. Fifty-seven years after his baptism, in a sermon on the baptism of Jesus, Luther preached this:

 He sacrifices Himself on the cross, becomes a sinner and a curse; and yet He alone is the blessed seed through whom all the world shall be blessed. . . . He is both the greatest and the only sinner on the earth, for he bears all the world’s sin. . . .

And whosoever believes that his sin and the sin of the world is laid on our dear Lord, who was baptized and nailed to the cross for it, and shed His precious blood in order that He, the only sin-bearer, should thus cleanse us from sin, and make us holy and blessed, that man receives forgiveness of sins, and eternal life; and Christ’s baptism, cross and blood becomes his own.

They are some surprising, indeed shocking words – that Jesus, in his baptism, becomes a sinner and a curse.  Jesus comes to John, whose baptizing in the Jordan is a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, so that presenting oneself to John to be baptized was to acknowledge one’s sinfulness. So Luther can preach that “He is both the greatest and the only sinner on the earth.” This is the “kindness and love of God our Savior” accomplished in his sacrificial life and death – not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to HIS mercy he saved us. God has laid on HIM our sin, so that he is sinner; and he thereby has laid on me my Lord’s righteousness so that I am a saint. This is the great gift which has been poured out on us abundantly through baptism, the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.

We give thanks to God that this pure work of God’s grace was proclaimed so clearly and simply, in all of its magnificence in the Reformation. To Him alone be the glory. Amen.