Why It Still Matters to Be a Lutheran

Why It Still Matters to Be a Lutheran

Ralph W. Klein

Concordia Seminary, October 28, 2009

I want to thank you warmly for the invitation to speak with you today. The last time I lectured on this campus was in 1974, when some of you had not been born, and when many of you, perhaps, had not been ordained. I don’t know how many other cities have regular meetings of rostered leaders of the ELCA and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod—I suspect it is very few—but that you meet two times a year, with a regular rotation between Missouri and ELCA speakers is to my mind a wondrous event, for which you are to be highly congratulated, and for whose continuance and expansion we all should fervently pray.

In 1983, the year I moved from St. Louis to Chicago, Carl Braaten published a small book entitled Principles of Lutheran Theology, whose chapter titles, at least, I will use to outline my initial remarks.

The first principle Braaten mentions is the canonical principle, to which he gives a typically Lutheran spin. Martin Luther made distinctions within the canon, advocating what most would call a canon within the canon. What was authoritative for Luther was the Bible’s burning center: the gospel of free grace and justification through faith alone solely on account of Christ. Scriptures are to be judged according to Luther’s formula, was Christum treibt, what conveys Christ. In my retirement I have become the curator of LSTC’s rare books collection, and among our prized possessions is a copy of Luther’s September and December Testaments of 1522. Their table of contents lists all 27 New Testament books, but only the first twenty-three are given numbers. There are no numbers for Hebrews,[1] James,[2] Jude,[3] and Revelation.[4] On Revelation, Luther stated that he could not find any evidence that it was written by the Holy Spirit.[5] I suspect that the majority of Lutherans today, including me, would find the gospel in these works, but Luther’s proposal about what gives the Scripture their authority and the silence of the Book of Concord about which books actually belong in the canon are telling. For Lutherans the Scripture’s central message is more important than the list of canonical books itself.

Braaten, p. 20, speaks of the deep gulf that exists between the biblical world of thought and that of Alexandria in the third century, Rome in the thirteenth century, Wittenberg in the 16th century and St. Louis and Chicago, not to mention Nairobi, in the 21st century. It is the task of hermeneutics to make an intelligible transmission of meaning from the biblical text to our contemporary context, and it is in the carrying out of this hermeneutical task where we experience some of our most profound tensions.

It still matters to be a Lutheran, secondly, because of what Braaten calls the confessional principle. The ELCA constitution after affirming the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life (2.03), and after accepting the three ecumenical creeds as true declarations of the faith of this church (2.04), adds the following two paragraphs:

2.05: This church accepts the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a true witness to the Gospel, acknowledging as one with it in faith and doctrine all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession. The ELCA, therefore, acknowledges the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod as one with it in faith and doctrine!

2.06: This church accepts the other confessional writings in the Book of Concord, namely, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise [on the Power and Primacy of the Pope], the Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord, as further valid interpretations of the faith of the Church.[6]

Braaten, 34, speaks of the heart of the confessions, justification through faith alone apart from works, as the right key for the interpretation of Scriptures, and reminds us that presuppositionless exegesis is impossible. Braaten swats away as a farce the Lutheran World Federation statement of 1983 that suggested that THE question today is not so much How can I find a gracious God, as how can I find God at all. I do not find these two positions that incompatible. If the Gospel is God’s good news for our bad situations, then our bad situations can change from century to century and even from person to person. I still believe that the happy exchange of our sin for Christ’s righteousness is at the center of the human theological dilemma, but I also believe that we should by no means dismiss the other theological dilemmas we face—such as the search for God in our secular age, the terminal illness that you and I might face, etc..

Braaten’s third principle is the ecumenical principle, or what Martin E. Marty called in 1958 “The Great New Fact of our Era.”[7] A lot of water has flown under the Lutheran ecumenical bridge since Marty wrote, including the temporary establishment of altar and pulpit fellowship between the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the American Lutheran Church in 1969, that ended in 1981, or the uniting of the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in the ELCA in 1988. One could also mention the joint declaration on Justification between the Roman Catholic Church and large portions of world Lutheranism, and the establishment of full communion between the ELCA and the Reformed Churches, the Episcopal Church, the Moravian Church, and the United Methodist Church. Braaten states that “The hope of ecumenical progress toward reconciliation lies in a methodology that generates a vision of unity out of our common link to the apostolic gospel, and not first on a level of doctrinal statements, church administration or ethical praxis.” (61) I suspect that we might have a very lively and fruitful conversation about the following sentence from Article VII of the Augsburg Confession: For this is enough for the true unity of the Christian church that there the gospel is preached harmoniously according to a pure understanding and the sacraments are administered in conformity with the divine Word.” (Kolb and Wengert, 42). However we might disagree on the exegesis or implications of that statement, this inclusive, evangelical, and faithful understanding of the church is why it still matters for me to be a Lutheran today.

The fourth principle that Braaten mentions is the christocentric principle. I am not going to linger long here despite the importance of the topic since I hope that this is a principle that unites us more than it divides us. If lex orandi is still lex credendi (the way one prays is the way one believes), then the prayers, the liturgies, and the hymns of the Lutheran Service Book (Concordia, 2006) and Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Augsburg Fortress, 2006) often ample proof in my judgment of the christocentric focus of our belief and theology. It was Muhlenberg’s dream that Lutherans in the United States would have a common hymnal,[8] and that dream was almost achieved in the Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978, except for the last minute decision of the LCMS to publish its own Lutheran Worship. I suspect that a neutral observer would not find that much of a difference in beliefs or doctrines in our two current hymnals.

The fifth principle Braaten pointed to was the sacramental principle. I believe that this is a principle that has gained enormously in importance during my lifetime, 56 percent of which was spent so far in the LCMS, 15% in the AELC, and 29% in the ELCA. In the earliest part of my life, in the congregation in which I was confirmed in the Missouri Synod, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated six times a year, later, already in Missouri, every month, and now every Sunday (or at least every other Sunday) in the ELCA and I suspect in many Missouri congregations. In many congregations in my youth, a good portion of the congregation would leave before the Eucharist, as if having heard the sermon, worship was complete. The many debts we who share the LCMS heritage owe to Arthur Carl Piepkorn is his steadfast polemicizing against this practice, which I hope has totally disappeared. The Lord’s Supper retains its strong focus on the forgiveness of sins, but it has regained a strong eschatological emphasis as the foretaste of the feast to come. One also experiences increasingly how this meal joins us together with all Christians of all nations, races, and ages. We Lutherans confess that the infinite meets us in this finite substance of bread and wine and therefore also hallows the stuff of creation and reminds us of the imperative to preserve and defend that creation. Some scholars credit the rich role of music and the visual arts in Lutheranism to the notion that the finite can contain the infinite. Through widespread parts of our churches this meal is called the Eucharist, our thanksgiving for this precious means of grace. I’ll confess that my earliest acquaintance with the Lord’s Supper was an excessively somber one, with the constant danger that one would eat or drink damnation to oneself, not discerning the Lord’s body. St. Paul wrote: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (ESV) or NRSV For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. Surprisingly the ELCA’s Lutheran Study Bible makes no comment on this verse while The Lutheran Study Bible (LCMS) offers three implications. First it states “the body” is short for body and blood and adds that discerning includes recognizing the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine (with a reference to Luther’s Small Catechism). Secondly this verse implies a desire for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation offered in the Sacrament. Finally, this verse also includes a desire to end the human divisions that destroy the unity of the Body of Christ created through the sacrament. I would put more stress on the third point, as Paul does in vv 21-22 when he criticizes the Corinthians for pigging out at the community meal. However that may be, the terror that was instilled in many about discerning the body is countered by the more reassuring words of the catechism: Fasting and bodily preparation are in fact a fine external discipline, but a person who has faith in these words, “given for you” and “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” is really worthy and well prepared.

I find an equally positive growth in understanding of baptism. I am not talking about doctrinal change since I think there has been none on baptism. But I think we do a much better job today of linking baptism to vocation, the vocation of all the baptized. The attempt to rename confirmation as Affirmation of Baptism, an attempt that has not been wholly successful, was a step in the right direction. I find widespread and renewed emphasis that baptism signifies that the old creature in us with all sins and evil desires is to be drowned and die through daily contrition and repentance, and on the other hand that daily a new person is to come forth and rise up to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. (Small Catechism). I googled the sentence “I am baptized” and the first of 3,110,000 hits was by John Pless, a professor at Fort Wayne, who writes: Baptism is present tense. It is not simply “I was baptized” but that “I am baptized.” Baptism is no mere rite of initiation on the spectrum of sacramental acts, but the basis and content of Christians’ lives that are brought to completion only in the resurrection of the body. The popularity of John Ylvisaker’s Borning Cry lies not only with those stirring words of verse 3: When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise, but even more with God’s personal address to each of us baptized: I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day you were baptized to see your life unfold.

The Sixth Lutheran Principle Braaten cited was Law and Gospel. Talk about distinguishing law and gospel in these hallowed halls is preaching to the choir since Walther’s lectures on this topic are among his stellar contributions to theology. We all recognize that a moralistic sermon is not the gospel, but the toughest thing I have found about preaching or listening to a sermon is the awkward thought: Everything the preacher said is true, but it has nothing to do with me. Braaten quotes a 19th century theologian who said: If by any chance a peddler of indulgences were to appear among us, he would not do a good business; for nobody has a disquieted and alarmed conscience (112). Braaten adds: People are not looking for a gracious God but a good deal, and preachers are helping them. I’m not sure I agree with either one of these statements but both contain some truth. It surely is true that our preaching of law has at times made sin too individual a thing, without adequate attention to sins like racism and sexism, war and militarism, and environmental devastation. I’ve never been much engaged in the fuss about the third use of the law since I believe the Old Testament often strongly advocates such a use. I have been more concerned about the current slogan “God loves us unconditionally.” People who use that expression—sometimes I also use it—are well intentioned. They mean either that there is no sin or no sinner so great that God cannot forgive him or her, or they mean that we contribute no merit to our salvation. And yet I have long thought that the slogan God loves us unconditionally should be joined to the second half of a paradox: And God also loves us with the hope and expectation that God’s love will transform us into a life of faith and sanctification. Without the second half of that paradox, I think we have “a fire hose type of theology” that is really cheap grace, not free grace.