In the late 1800's, there was a terrific division within the Midwestern confessional synods over what role individual choice made in our salvation. The Iowa and Ohio synods held to a synergistic view, while Missouri and Wisconsin held to a strictly monergistic position, under which our salvation, being entirely by grace, was entirely God's work and entirely foreseen and intended by God. Missouri and Wisconsin accused Iowa and Ohio of Arminianism, while Iowa and Ohio accused Missouri and Wisconsin of Calvinism.
Today, the Church Growth movement has come into Missouri Synod big-time. A major component of Church Growth theology is the idea that there are millions of "seekers" who are looking for God but have not yet made a personal commitment to Him. This is plainly contrary to the view held by Missouri in the old controversy, and it might be a good idea to review what happened back then and consider what our theology will be going forward.
There may be driving forces within the more conservative wing of Synod in favor of a more synergistic approach as well. A large part of that more conservative group looks back favorably on Wilhelm Loehe and not so favorably on Carl Walther. To be sure, that is not, in the first instance because of their views on predestination and justification but rather because of Loehe's almost Anglo-Catholic view of the ministry as opposed to Walther's more Protestant view. Still, if we are going to become more Loehe's than Walther's synod, as many pastors wish, does that place a more synergistic view of justification in a better light?
This blog will, in the coming weeks, review the Scriptural and Confessional background of the issue. Relevant materials will include the Formula of Concord and Luther's The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbitrio), as well as other secondary sources.
The Missouri Synod is about to have a national convention, in mid-July, that could determine the synod's course for a century or more to come. It is urgent that all delegates be conversant with what is at issue theologically. It is not about pipe organ vs. praise band. It is about whether our teaching concerning justification will be Lutheran or something else.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Erhalt Uns Herr bei Deinem Wort
This blog is dedicated to the proposition that true Christian teaching is knowable and is based in the clearest possible reading of God's Word in Scripture. This is not always to mean the literal reading; in approaching the Scriptures, we have to be aware of common modes of speaking and writing at the time they were written. The prophets and apostles wrote what the Holy Spirit moved them to write, but they generally did so in their own language or, when they quoted someone, in the language used by the speaker or writer quoted.
To be rejected is any teaching that denies the Bible's truth, or that asserts something that cannot be shown clearly from Scripture. This includes the "minimalists" who claim that the story of early Israel is at best a fable, at worst a lie. It includes the Marxists who turn the Israelites' conquest of Canaan into a Canaanite peasant's uprising and Jesus into a social revolutionary. It includes any historical-critical scholarship that proceeds on the basis that the scholar knows better than the writers of Scripture, as von Ranke said, "wie es eigentlich geschehen ist" (how it really happened).
Also to be rejected is any practice in the Church that is contrary to the Scriptures. The placement of women in the office of ministry is plainly contrary to 1 Tim. 2:12 and 3:2 and to Titus 1:6. Preaching that fails rightly to divide the Word into Law and Gospel (more on this below) is necessarily rejected, as the result is either Law-oriented "how to" sermons or Gospel sermons that tell you that you are saved but fail to tell you from what or why you need salvation.
On 2 Tim. 2:15. The King James Version says "rightly dividing" the word. This is consistent with Luther, who has it "recht teilen." More modern translations prefer "handling". The word in question is "orthotomeo"--literally, to cut rightly. To cut is not to handle--it is to divide. This is a case where "the best modern scholarship" is not the best scholarship; the best scholarship was that of the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is one of those cases where the division of Biblical scholarship from dogmatics has not been helpful. The Law-Gospel distinction, fundamental to Lutheran theology and, originally, to Reformed theology as well, is controversial with those who would, with the antinomians and modern liberals, abolish the Law, and those who would make the Gospel a new Law, with new commands for us. This "right division" of the Word is plainly St. Paul's meaning, when one reads it with his other writings in mind. It is this distinction that is the principal subject of Galatians and one of the chief subjects of Romans.
To remain steadfast in His Word requires us to handle it properly, to honor its truthfulness, and to recognize its distinctions. In the words of Luther's old hymn
Lord, keep us steadfast in thy Word
Curb those who fain with craft and sword
Would wrest the kingdom from thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.
To be rejected is any teaching that denies the Bible's truth, or that asserts something that cannot be shown clearly from Scripture. This includes the "minimalists" who claim that the story of early Israel is at best a fable, at worst a lie. It includes the Marxists who turn the Israelites' conquest of Canaan into a Canaanite peasant's uprising and Jesus into a social revolutionary. It includes any historical-critical scholarship that proceeds on the basis that the scholar knows better than the writers of Scripture, as von Ranke said, "wie es eigentlich geschehen ist" (how it really happened).
Also to be rejected is any practice in the Church that is contrary to the Scriptures. The placement of women in the office of ministry is plainly contrary to 1 Tim. 2:12 and 3:2 and to Titus 1:6. Preaching that fails rightly to divide the Word into Law and Gospel (more on this below) is necessarily rejected, as the result is either Law-oriented "how to" sermons or Gospel sermons that tell you that you are saved but fail to tell you from what or why you need salvation.
On 2 Tim. 2:15. The King James Version says "rightly dividing" the word. This is consistent with Luther, who has it "recht teilen." More modern translations prefer "handling". The word in question is "orthotomeo"--literally, to cut rightly. To cut is not to handle--it is to divide. This is a case where "the best modern scholarship" is not the best scholarship; the best scholarship was that of the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is one of those cases where the division of Biblical scholarship from dogmatics has not been helpful. The Law-Gospel distinction, fundamental to Lutheran theology and, originally, to Reformed theology as well, is controversial with those who would, with the antinomians and modern liberals, abolish the Law, and those who would make the Gospel a new Law, with new commands for us. This "right division" of the Word is plainly St. Paul's meaning, when one reads it with his other writings in mind. It is this distinction that is the principal subject of Galatians and one of the chief subjects of Romans.
To remain steadfast in His Word requires us to handle it properly, to honor its truthfulness, and to recognize its distinctions. In the words of Luther's old hymn
Lord, keep us steadfast in thy Word
Curb those who fain with craft and sword
Would wrest the kingdom from thy Son
And set at naught all He hath done.
Monday, September 29, 2008
One Layman with Scripture
At the Leipzig debate, Luther said, "One layman with Scripture is worthier of belief than pope and council without." The implications of that statement went far beyond papism, and open up some territory that is very uncomfortable for a good many Lutheran pastors. There is no special revelation to pastors; they have no monopoly on the truth of the Gospel, nor even on being able to proclaim and explain it.
About five years ago, a pastor told me to "submit and shut up" in a dispute about Scripture and the Confessions because he was a pastor and I was not. He was propagating the theory once taught by J.A.A. Grabau (of whom he, and I until very shortly before then, had never heard) that the Holy Gospel is operative as a means of grace through which the Holy Spirit works only when proclaimed by an ordained pastor. A layman reading the Bible at home, he said, received no grace thereby; a layman telling his neighbor the Gospel conveyed no grace thereby. The commission given to Christians to teach the Gospel to all nations was given only to pastors; it was the role of laymen, he said, to pray and to support pastors with their offerings. This was a formula I have heard applied to the Roman church--"pay, pray and obey"--but I had never dreamed that it was something that would be thought, let alone spoken, by a Lutheran pastor.
Through the years following, I have seen the names of several professors mentioned as supporting these teachings--David Scaer and Arthur Just of Ft. Wayne, Norman Nagel of St. Louis. However, I know Dr. Nagel well enough to know he teaches no such thing, and I have an email in which Dr. Scaer tells me specifically that he teaches no such thing; I have no reason to doubt that eminent scholar's word. Dr. Just did present a symposium paper on one occasion which, if read in the most expansive possible manner, might be taken to support such a thing; however, any reasonable reading of his paper stops well short of that position.
The simplest of all possible logic ought to discredit such a position in a heartbeat. We are Lutherans. Luther himself made clear repeatedly that the Word is the Word, whether spoken or read, whether spoken by a pastor or by a layman. But the proponents of this idea respond, "We are not the cult of Luther but the church of the Confessions." Very well. Who wrote the Confessions? The Augsburg Confession, its Apology, and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope were written by Philipp Melanchthon--a layman. So on the authority of the writings of a layman, pastors say only the pronouncements of pastors matter. The contradiction is so obvious as to be painful.
What is the exclusive property of the ministry is authority over preaching in their congregations. There is no unique quality of pastors that enables them to preach the Word, without which the Holy Spirit is not in the Word. Luther, on one occasion, expressed the wish that Melanchthon would preach. At Luther's funeral, Melanchthon did preach, at a service conducted by Bugenhagen (who also preached). If Melanchthon had preached as Luther wished, and when he did preach at Luther's funeral, it would have been, and was, under the authority and at the request of a pastor.
When anyone proclaims the Gospel to anyone else, the Holy Spirit is present and, when and where He wills, works grace as set forth in AC V. That is true whether it is the pastor in his pulpit, a father with his family, a teacher with her pupils or a hairdresser with her customer. When we read the Scripture, He is present and works grace when and where He wills. While it is quite true that, as Dr. Nagel has said, "you cannot gift yourself," when you are reading Scripture, you are not gifting yourself. You are receiving the gift for the ages given by the Holy Spirit through Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists and the Apostles.
There are not two classes of Christians. There are Christians. Some have been given the office of ministry, to be the carers for the souls of the congregation that has called them. That includes remaining responsible for all preaching and teaching done in that congregation, but not necessarily doing all of it. St. Paul tells St. Timothy to "give attention" to preaching, the reading of the Word, etc., but he does not write "Let no one else" do it.
There are attacks on the ministry in today's church. There are those who would make the primary carers for souls the "lay leaders" in the congregation, with the pastor really pastoring only those "lay leaders." They would make the primary proclamation of the Gospel the small groups, led by "lay leaders", and not the congregation itself. These are not issues of "usurpation" of the office by laymen, but of abdication of the office by pastors. It is entirely proper for a church to have auxiliary offices that assist the pastor (see Walther, Church and Ministry, Thesis VIII); it is not proper to turn the ministry into an episcopate with the presbyteral duties delegated to laymen.
But those who would turn our ministry into a Roman priesthood are dead wrong.
About five years ago, a pastor told me to "submit and shut up" in a dispute about Scripture and the Confessions because he was a pastor and I was not. He was propagating the theory once taught by J.A.A. Grabau (of whom he, and I until very shortly before then, had never heard) that the Holy Gospel is operative as a means of grace through which the Holy Spirit works only when proclaimed by an ordained pastor. A layman reading the Bible at home, he said, received no grace thereby; a layman telling his neighbor the Gospel conveyed no grace thereby. The commission given to Christians to teach the Gospel to all nations was given only to pastors; it was the role of laymen, he said, to pray and to support pastors with their offerings. This was a formula I have heard applied to the Roman church--"pay, pray and obey"--but I had never dreamed that it was something that would be thought, let alone spoken, by a Lutheran pastor.
Through the years following, I have seen the names of several professors mentioned as supporting these teachings--David Scaer and Arthur Just of Ft. Wayne, Norman Nagel of St. Louis. However, I know Dr. Nagel well enough to know he teaches no such thing, and I have an email in which Dr. Scaer tells me specifically that he teaches no such thing; I have no reason to doubt that eminent scholar's word. Dr. Just did present a symposium paper on one occasion which, if read in the most expansive possible manner, might be taken to support such a thing; however, any reasonable reading of his paper stops well short of that position.
The simplest of all possible logic ought to discredit such a position in a heartbeat. We are Lutherans. Luther himself made clear repeatedly that the Word is the Word, whether spoken or read, whether spoken by a pastor or by a layman. But the proponents of this idea respond, "We are not the cult of Luther but the church of the Confessions." Very well. Who wrote the Confessions? The Augsburg Confession, its Apology, and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope were written by Philipp Melanchthon--a layman. So on the authority of the writings of a layman, pastors say only the pronouncements of pastors matter. The contradiction is so obvious as to be painful.
What is the exclusive property of the ministry is authority over preaching in their congregations. There is no unique quality of pastors that enables them to preach the Word, without which the Holy Spirit is not in the Word. Luther, on one occasion, expressed the wish that Melanchthon would preach. At Luther's funeral, Melanchthon did preach, at a service conducted by Bugenhagen (who also preached). If Melanchthon had preached as Luther wished, and when he did preach at Luther's funeral, it would have been, and was, under the authority and at the request of a pastor.
When anyone proclaims the Gospel to anyone else, the Holy Spirit is present and, when and where He wills, works grace as set forth in AC V. That is true whether it is the pastor in his pulpit, a father with his family, a teacher with her pupils or a hairdresser with her customer. When we read the Scripture, He is present and works grace when and where He wills. While it is quite true that, as Dr. Nagel has said, "you cannot gift yourself," when you are reading Scripture, you are not gifting yourself. You are receiving the gift for the ages given by the Holy Spirit through Moses, the Prophets, the Evangelists and the Apostles.
There are not two classes of Christians. There are Christians. Some have been given the office of ministry, to be the carers for the souls of the congregation that has called them. That includes remaining responsible for all preaching and teaching done in that congregation, but not necessarily doing all of it. St. Paul tells St. Timothy to "give attention" to preaching, the reading of the Word, etc., but he does not write "Let no one else" do it.
There are attacks on the ministry in today's church. There are those who would make the primary carers for souls the "lay leaders" in the congregation, with the pastor really pastoring only those "lay leaders." They would make the primary proclamation of the Gospel the small groups, led by "lay leaders", and not the congregation itself. These are not issues of "usurpation" of the office by laymen, but of abdication of the office by pastors. It is entirely proper for a church to have auxiliary offices that assist the pastor (see Walther, Church and Ministry, Thesis VIII); it is not proper to turn the ministry into an episcopate with the presbyteral duties delegated to laymen.
But those who would turn our ministry into a Roman priesthood are dead wrong.
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