The truth is that we all find things in the Lutheran Confessions that we would have written differently -- in part because our age is different from the age in which those words were penned and presented. We would add into those Confessions issues that are currently on the forefront of our conflicts and controversies in the hope that, like the Formula, the issues might be settled. We would take away those things we do not personally like -- even if we grudgingly acknowledge that they are true. I am no different. But the Lutheran Confessions are not a living document. They attest to the faith confessed not simply then but always -- though along with that are some polemics that, while true, might be more timely appropriate to another age. They are not Scripture though we confess that they properly attest to and are reflective of what God's Word says. We esteem them highly because they accord with Scripture and every Lutheran pastor or commissioned minister confesses this at least at ordination or commissioning and installations.
I was once enamored by the idea of writing a new confession to be added to the Book of Concord. It was a foolish idea in a foolish period of my education. Since then I have thought better of the idea and put it to rest in my own mind. We in Missouri sort of tried that with the Brief Statement. We might have tried it again with A Statement but remembered the problems with the Brief Statement and wisely reconsidered. But some still wish for and want to put pen to paper again in the hopes of writing a confession that ties up all the loose ends in the Book of Concord and, perhaps, in Scripture itself. That should not happen. Ours is not a problem with not enough words but not enough faith.
Some suggest that a new confession is the ultimate fruit of a church always reforming. Ecclesia semper reformanda est (Latin for "the church must always be
reformed") was first greatly popularized by Karl Barth in 1947. He claims the phrase came from St. Augustine. In reality, it is less about the re-examination of what the church has always taught than it is the opportunity to reconsider it. In fact, more often than not it is the penchant of certain Reformed Protestant theologians and those church bodies in which they have influence to say the
church must continually re-examine precisely to raise questions about the past and what was believed and confessed and taught and to depart from it. In its narrower understanding, every church must re-examine its current faith and practice in order to maintain its
purity of doctrine and practice. This is not navel gazing but the reflection of what we say and do in light of Scripture and the creeds and confessions of our churches. If the church always being reformed meant this, we might not need to talk so much about a new confessional document. Just sayin....
3 comments:
If Lutheranism is not a particular way of organizing the church or organizing theology, but simply a confession of the catholic faith, then there are no grounds for arguing practice in the Lutheran churches from passages such as “We retain the Mass” in the Augustana or from Luther’s disparaging remarks about long gowns, hats, surplices, etc. in the Smalcald Articles. Melanchthon’s remarks in the Confessions about women not needing head coverings if society says it’s okay has been used to argue against the strict biblicism of Missouri and in favor of the ELCA’s hermeneutical approach to the Bible as humanly written documents that communicate the Gospel as more authentically Lutheran.
What governs practice in a Lutheran church therefore is that which is orderly, salutary and edifying for the purpose of Word and Sacrament ministry of the catholic faith, which would be fairly broad in application. If we examine the approach of the original Lutherans, this was indeed the case, as traditional practices and ceremonies were either preserved due to their service of the Gospel or dropped due to their contrariness to the Gospel. Singing the Ten Commandments, for example, was a common feature of early Lutheran worship. We don’t clamor for the return of this practice today, however.
As for the Brief Statement, there are many who believe that it reaches beyond the Confessions, particularly regarding the six days of creation, and that this serves as a major impediment to growth.
My problem with the Book of Concord has nothing to do with any changes that have occurred since its writing. They have everything to do with the pure Gospel, as it was proclaimed by our Lord, and which is contradicted by some sections of the Confessions.
Here are three examples:
That David lost faith and the Holy Spirit because of his affair with Bathsheba, and the killing of her husband.
That we receive the forgiveness of sins when we drink the blood of our Lord in the Sacrament.
That God punishes His people in this life.
Scripture does not teach any of these. Because of them, the proclamation of the pure Gospel in our churches is not possible.
Peace and Joy!
George A. Marquart
George, the teaching that receiving the body and blood of Christ forgives sins is very Lutheran because Lutherans don’t divide up the Sacrament into moments. True, Luther and old Missouri theology placed the emphasis on “It is not the eating and drinking, indeed, that does them, but the words which stand here, namely: Given, and shed for you, for the remission of sins. Which words are, beside the bodily eating and drinking, as the chief thing in the Sacrament; and he that believes these words has what they say and express, namely, the forgiveness of sins.”
The sacramental theology of Hermann Sasse, who was trained as a church historian, is different in emphasis but considered preeminent in the LCMS today since its initial rejection in the 1960s. This emphasis is on passages such as 1 John 1:7 and the attitudes of the early Church towards the Sacrament.
At some point in time (1980s?) the translation of the Small Catechism was updated to more clearly reflect this understanding of not dividing up the moments of the Sacrament. The new wording was “It is not just the eating and drinking…”
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