The Constant Temptation Lutherans Face
January 9th, 2009
I have observed, for a very long time, that there are Lutherans who wish, very much, to act, talk, walk, and otherwise appear to all to be not too much different from the surrounding Reformed/Evangelical/Non-Denominational church bodies that are all over America. Apparently this is not a new temptation, or problem. Pr. Weedon shared this choice morsel from C.P. Krauth with me:
When the Lutheran Church acts in the spirit of the current denominationalism it abandons its own spirit. It is a house divided against itself. Some even then will stand firm, and with the choosing of new gods on the part of others there will be war in the gates. No seeming success could compensate our church for the forsaking of principles which gave her her being, for the loss of internal peace, for the destruction of her proper dignity, for the lack of self-respect which would follow it. The Lutheran Church can never have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the reverence and loyalty of its children while it allows the fear of the denominations around it, or the desire of their approval, in any respect to shape its principles or control its actions. It is a fatal thing to ask not, What is right? What is consistent? but, What will be thought of us? How will the sectarian and secular papers talk about us? How will our neighbors of the different communions regard this or that course? Better to die than to prolong a miserable life by such compromise of all that gives life its value.
–“The Right Relation to Denominations in America,” in Lutheran Confessional Theology in America, 1840-1880, edited by Theodore G. Tappert (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 135
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Categories: Lutheranism
Amen
I am a recent “convert” to Lutheransim after 2 decades of Calvary Chapel/Baptist churches. If I wanted a church like the rest of evangelicalism, I would have stayed at Calvary Chapel.
If you have been a lifelong or longtime Lutheran, I hope you realize what you have there! Keep true to it. Be bold in what you are, not in what everybody else is! I don’t see to many evangelical churches, that are a mile wide and an inch deep, changing to become for liturgical etc.
What I have found, is what I was looking for for years, and I just didn’t know it was right down the street. I don’t want it to look like everything else.
Rob
A helpful post. However, I grow increasingly chagrined that confessional Lutherans identify the temptations from the Reformed Protestant side (and often unfairly identify charismastic and neo-Evangelical types under the overdrawn umbrella of “Reformed”–traditional Calvinists would certainly object!) while ignoring the temptation from the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox side.
[[MCCAIN: This blog site has been accused of focusing too much on attacking Rome and the East and not enough the Calvinists. Go figure.]]
The temptation may not be as pervasive as that from the evangelical subculture in America, but it is certainly there, among laymen who are still often drawn into RC churches, and even more among pastors, several noteworthy ones having recently left the Evangelical Lutheran confession. Unhelpful are blanket statements like that made in a recent issue of Concordia Theological Quarterly (April 2008) that “If a fence were drawn down the middle of world Christendom, Lutherans would be on the same side with Roman Catholics looking at the Reformed on the other side.” Really? Regarding the atonement? Justification? The papal monarchy? The doctrine of the church? Etc.
Let’s face is, to be a confessional Lutheran is, as reflected in the recent edition of some of Hermann Sasse’s writings, “the lonely way.” Lively and even winsome engagement on the various sides of the confessional divide should never leave any Christian, certainly not a Lutheran, suggesting that some temptations toward denial of God’s Word and the central articles of the faith are more benign than others.
I agree but would post this one caution:
Being Lutheran does not equal being German.
I love the liturgy. I see no problem with that: It is part of the historic Christian church. However, congregants should be able to use music forms from any and every country on earth. Here is where I can see the current conflict in the LCMS. I am confessional. However, I am not German. I am Irish-English-Scots-French-American Indian-Pennsylvania Dutch (OK, that last one is German), anyway, I appreciate music styles from all around the world. Some styles are very old. Some styles are very new.
I have no problem with “Lutheran distinctives,” but if forcing culture as well as theology is a part of the mix, well, then maybe we all need to go back and reread about those visions St Peter had in the book of Acts.
Blessings,
Randy