Friday, August 11, 2017

What of Luther?

In another of many articles from the more conservative wing of Roman Catholicism, Luther is portrayed not as reformer but as radical revolutionary, responsible for a host of ills in modern day Christianity and in the world.  There are too many such reviews of Luther to list.  Google them yourself.

In one such article, it is asserted:  The key issue in debating Luther’s legacy on conscience in the Catholic Church entails whether the teachings of the Church are subordinate to one’s own conscience or whether conscience is bound by the teaching of the Church.  But, of course, that is the problem.  The key issue is misstated.  The key issue was the place of Scripture.  Are the teachings of the Church subordinate to the Word of God or do they source and norm the Church's teaching?  That was Luther's question.  As far the individual, Luther place himself and all Christians also under that Word of God and captive to that Word was his conscience and all true conscience.

Ultimately, my issue is this.  I do not expect Rome to lavish praise upon Luther.  But what I do expect and what we ought to expect is a fair reading of Luther.  If the intent is to trash Luther, there is no scholarship needed.  Luther's own words can be twisted and used out of context to condemn him and it is child's play to do so.  But a fair reading of Luther is much more difficult.  This requires something deeper and more profound than a summary dismissal of Luther.

As we march through the 500th Anniversary of the 95 Theses, it would do well if both Lutherans and Roman Catholics spent time getting to know Luther.  At the same time, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge Luther's own judgment against his works.  They are of uneven quality and some got carried away with passion and emotion.  Lutherans, however, are not bound to the ups and downs of Luther's own admission but to the Concordia, the Lutheran Confessions.  We appreciate Luther, to be sure, but we do not worship him or his words.  Luther must be judged as he admits and, for that matter, as all of us will be judged -- in relation to the Word of the Lord that endures forever.

Perhaps I protest against the impossible.  That may be the case.  Yet Lutherans and Roman Catholics do little to advance any good cause by appealing to stereotypes.  We must work through the material that divides and that which unites us with equal fervor and beneath the Word of God that is both source and norm of what we believe, confess, and teach.  Until that happens, ecumenical statements are but window dressing.  I had great hope for the Lutheran/Roman Catholic dialogues when they began.  Lutherans were awaking to our own rediscovery of what we believed, confessed, and taught and Rome was part of this reawakening.  Somewhere along the way, we ceased the fruitful dialog in favor of either words vague enough to justify different interpretation or the kind of fake agreements in which we agree to disagree as long as we do not find such disagreements divisive of fellowship. It galls me no less when I read Lutherans who have failed to read Rome accurately.  We all have much to repent and not a little of it is the comfort with which we skirt around the hard discussions instead of meeting them head on.  That said, the key issue remains one of infallible truth and where it resides.  Here Luther was reawakening in his own time a concern for the Word of God that was once heartily acknowledged to bind the teaching and witness of the Church and individual conscience.  Perhaps there is nothing more radical than a return to a truth once beloved and now forgotten.

6 comments:

Carl Vehse said...

"Yet Lutherans and Roman Catholics do little to advance any good cause by appealing to stereotypes. We must work through the material that divides and that which unites us with equal fervor and beneath the Word of God that is both source and norm of what we believe, confess, and teach."

Rev. Peters, the tension you express in this column has been evident in your writings over the years. It is clearly a personal tension.

Ultimately, Rev. Peters, you will need to make a choice between the confession of the Lutheran Church and the confession of the Roman Church.

They are incompatible. You cannot combine or negotiate agreement between them without destroying the confession of one or the other or both. You may work to convert some Romanists to Lutheranism, just as the papists have converted some Lutherans (including pastors), but you cannot convert the Roman Church without destroying it.

Martin Luther was correct when he said, "Therefore, just as little as we can worship the devil himself as Lord and God, we can endure his apostle, the Pope, or Antichrist, in his rule as head or lord." (SA.II.IV.14)

For the sake of your physical, mental, and spiritual health, this personal tension you have within you needs to be resolved.

Dr.D said...

Observing this as a bystander, I see Romans accustomed to placing all confidence and trust in the words of the pope, thought to be the living representative of Jesus Christ and endowed with His authority. They therefore project that same sort of assumption on Lutherans, presuming that Lutherans must think about Luther as they think about the pope. I know this is not true, but they don't know it is not true.

Romanism is all about having a living man who has ultimate authority. They just cannot imagine any other way.

Fr. D+

Pastor Peters said...

Quote:
Rev. Peters, the tension you express in this column has been evident in your writings over the years. It is clearly a personal tension.

Ultimately, Rev. Peters, you will need to make a choice between the confession of the Lutheran Church and the confession of the Roman Church.

Response:
I have no personal tension in this. I am Lutheran in confession, in piety, in practice, and in witness and unashamedly so. But this is an inherently Lutheran tension because of the nation of our roots and the shape and direction of our Confessions (to Rome most of all). I do not yearn for anything but the goal of Luther, a renewed and refreshed Church in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, born of confidence in the means of grace that impart to us new life and sustain us in this new life, and assured of our present and eternal future because of the Word and promise of God. It is woven into the fabric of Lutheranism to hope and pray that Rome would leave behind its novelty in doctrine and the impediments to this renewal. If that results in the healing of a breach, God bless. If it does not, the unity of the Church does not depend upon a common address for a church headquarters but upon the unity of and wrought by the Spirit.

Carl Vehse said...

Rev. Peters: "But this is an inherently Lutheran tension because of the nation of our roots and the shape and direction of our Confessions (to Rome most of all)."

Lutheran roots are not in the Roman (Papist) Church, but in the Apostolic Church. Leo X and Roman Church isolated themselves from the Lutherans on June 15, 1520, with the Exsurge Domine and Martin Luther confirmed that decision by burning the papal bull in a bonfire on December 10, 1520, at Wittenburg.

Rev. Peters: "It is woven into the fabric of Lutheranism to hope and pray that Rome would leave behind its novelty in doctrine and the impediments to this renewal."

It is woven into the fabric of Lutheranism to hope and pray that people within the Roman Church would leave it for an orthodox Christian church.

Again, from the Lutheran Confessions, SA.II.IV.14: "And when we distinguish the Pope's teaching from, or measure and hold it against, Holy Scripture, it is found [it appears plainly] that the Pope's teaching, where it is best, has been taken from the imperial and heathen law, and treats of political matters and decisions or rights, as the Decretals show; furthermore, it teaches of ceremonies concerning churches, garments, food, persons and [similar] puerile, theatrical and comical things without measure, but in all these things nothing at all of Christ, faith, and the commandments of God. Lastly, it is nothing else than the devil himself, because above and against God he urges [and disseminates] his [papal] falsehoods concerning masses, purgatory, the monastic life, one's own works and [fictitious] divine worship (for this is the very Papacy [upon each of which the Papacy is altogether founded and is standing]), and condemns, murders and tortures all Christians who do not exalt and honor these abominations [of the Pope] above all things."

And from another Lutheran Symbol, Tr.41]: "This being the case, all Christians ought to beware of becoming partakers of the godless doctrine, blasphemies, and unjust cruelty of the Pope. On this account they ought to desert and execrate the Pope with his adherents as the kingdom of Antichrist; just as Christ has commanded, Matt. 7:15: Beware of false prophets. And Paul commands that godless teachers should be avoided and execrated as cursed, Gal. 1:8; Titus 3:10. And he says, 2 Cor. 6:14: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what communion hath light with darkness?"

Tr.42] "...On this account our consciences are sufficiently excused; for the errors of the kingdom of the Pope are manifest. And Scripture with its entire voice exclaims that these errors are a teaching of demons and of Antichrist. 43] The idolatry in the profanation of the masses is manifest, which, besides other faults [besides being altogether useless] are shamelessly applied to most shameful gain [and trafficking]. 44] The doctrine of repentance has been utterly corrupted by the Pope and his adherents. For they teach that sins are remitted because of the worth of our works. Then they bid us doubt whether the remission takes place. They nowhere teach that sins are remitted freely for Christ's sake, and that by this faith we obtain remission of sins."

David Gray said...

Pastor Peters is correct in his assertion. Rome expelled Luther. Luther didn't flee Rome. Read Luther's letter to Pope Leo.

Carl Vehse said...

The September 6, 1520, letter is irrelevant after December 10, 1520, as well as after January 3, 1521 and especially after April 18, 1521, and May 26, 1521, and July 1, 1523, when two Lutherans, who refused to recant, were burned at the stake by the papists, and June 25, 1530, and February 17, 1537, and May 28, 1577, and June 25, 1580, and April 26, 1847, and on any date a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded or a Lutheran pastor was ordained or a Lutheran confirmand answered "I do" to his vow of subscription to the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is exposited in the Book of Concord of 1580.