Germany’s Evangelical Church Commission for Theology Formally Rejects the Augsburg Confession
(HANNOVER) In a vote that has stunned both Lutherans and Protestants across Germany, the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKiD), published on Monday, September 28, 2009 its decision regarding one of the most critical documents to emerge from the Reformation. The Commission for Theology (Kammer für Theologie), the official theological advisory board of the EKD, voted to reject accepting the Augsburg Confession of 1530 as one of its fundamental documents.
The decision had been referred to the Commission by the Council of the EKD who, after several years of scholarly discussions on the question involving both Lutheran and Reformed theologians, had requested a final vote. The Commission considered three questions in making its decision which it presented in a document titled, “Should the Augsburg Confession become the primary confession of the Evangelical Church in Germany?” The Commission asked 1) “What purpose does the acceptance of handed down confessional texts have for the fundamentals and understanding of the individual evangelical churches in general?” 2) “What is the relationship of the fundamentals of the EKD, as a fellowship of individual evangelical churches, to the fundamentals of her member churches?” 3) “What would it mean to accept the text of the Augsburg Confession into the fundamentals of the EKD?”
Known simply as “Number 103,” in a series of EKD texts available on line http://www.ekd.de/download/ekd_texte_103.pdf, the concluding statement reads, “The Commission for Theology advises the Council of the EKD not to accept the Augsburg Confession as a primary confession in the EKD fundamentals.” The Commission is co-chaired by Michael Beintner (Münster) and Professor Dorothea Wendebourg. The vote was unanimous and agreed to by the EKD Council, which affirmed its readiness to continue strengthening the bonds of the EKD. Instead of accepting the Augsburg Confession, a document that both Lutherans and Protestants in Germany agree “has been the core confession of all of German Protestantism from 1530 to 1806″ (Prof. Dr. Wolf-Dieter Hauschild, Münster), the Council referred dissenters to its 2001 adoption of “Church Fellowship in Evangelical Understanding” (KneV). There it states that the EKD does not seek to form “a canonical church, like her member churches,” since the EKD already is [the] church in the fullest sense of the word. Perhaps mindful that KneV was German Protestantism’s response to the Vatican’s August 2000 document “Dominus Iesus,” which affirmed the primacy of the Roman Church over all other “ecclesial communities,” EKD President Hermann Barth stated, “Measures by which the EKD must first become the church are not necessary, since she is already it in the theological sense, since church fellowship is church.” The EKD reaffirmed it’s continuing commitment to the Leuenberger Konkordie.
In addition to serving on the Commission for Theology for the EKD, Professor Wendebourg also serves on the Theological Advisory Board (TAB) of the WordAlone Network (WAN), a group within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). In 2002, Wendebourg, coauthored a document for WAN in opposition to the Lutheran – Episcopal agreement “Called to Common Mission” entitled “Admonition for the Sake of the True Peace and Unity of the Church.” In it, Wendebourg and others call, among other things, for ordinations “of equal standing,” whereby episcopal and presbyteral ordinations are equally recognized. The “Admonition” cites the Augsburg Confession throughout.
Written by Pastor Kris Baudler
St. Luke’s Lutheran Church of Bay Shore, NY
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Brentwood, NY
On one hand, I appreciate the honesty.
Could some Deutsch reader clue us Anglophones in on what about the AC they didn’t like?
This is more of liberal protestantism committing suicide. As a convert to Lutheranism, I consider the Confessions to be irreplaceable. I understand why some evangelicals feel the need to convert to the Orthodox churches. It is because of the liberals among us who have such little regard for their own tradition–culturally and theologically. Keep it up; your congregations will dwindle down to nothing; your churches will be sold and become nightclubs (as some have in Europe). And those faiths that provide a solid moral and theological foundation (Evangelicals, Neo-Calvinists, Islam, etc.), will gather the sheep in that you chased away.
Should Lutherans be sad about this news bit from Germany? Of course, one could argue: yes we should be sad because we’re interested in as many people as possible joining and enjoying the evangelical truths confessed by the Augsburg Confession (and, if possible, the other confessions of the church authored by Lutherans in the 16th century).
On the other hand, we can argue: well, that’s all true, but what if they don’t really mean their endorsement? As was pointed out in the EKD document, most Reformed churches, if they cared for the AC at all, had embraced the CA Variata, with its problematic doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. So, if the embrace really can’t be honest, then better not embrace it.
The other thing that is pointed out in the EKD text is the strange ecclesiological nature of the EKD: even though its name seems to suggest it’s a church (Evangelical CHURCH in Germany), its self-understanding apparently wouldn’t go that far: it is not church but church fellowship or, which may or may not be the same, a fellowship of churches. It is, in other words, as much or as little as the “actual” Protestant churches that are in fellowship in Germany want it to be. (For Americans: it’s something like some administrative unit that would maintain and discuss and perhaps expand on the fellowship that exists between, say, ELCA and PCUSA and other Reformed churches here: they are not “one church”, but recognize each other as church, while maintaining their distinct confessions and theological emphases. Given these different confessions, it’s less than the defunct Synodical Conference here in the US or the VELKD in Germany.)
Based on this peculiar nature of the EKD, I’d say I have to agree with the opinion expressed in the paper.
On the other hand, one also needs to keep in mind that some in the EKD would like to see and define it a bit more church-like, but this would draw into question the existing territorial churches and their (Lutheran, Reformed, or Union) confessions even more. At any rate, their are plans being discussed that seek to organize Protestantism at least along current state-lines, thus doing away with the traditional organization along historic state-lines: you’d have one territorial church in Bavaria, one in Lower Saxony, one in Westphalia, etc. In some areas, that’s already a reality and not a real problem; but in other cases you have territorial churches of differing confessions in one and the same state. So what do you do there??
It’s an entirely different matter how much any confessional subscription in any territorial church in Germany is worth in terms of actual theological doctrine and practice. In other words: when was the last pastor in a Lutheran territorial church subjected to doctrinal discipline for teaching, say, a more or less Reformed understanding of the Lord’s Supper? This then leads to the question: if confessional subscription not worth much, why this “confessional” posturing? Has not, and that’s certainly a point Hermann Sasse would have made today even more than he did 60 years ago, the EKD become the de-facto universal Protestant Church in Germany as its name so powerfully suggests? The practice of freely transferrable membership, criticized by Sasse in his day, between the churches just by moving from the area of one church to that of another supports this as well. Also the theological education of future pastors of those churches fits into this picture as it does not take place at confessionally defined seminaries but at academic institutions that do not have a clear-cut confessional profile (e.g., Heidelberg, though, will always remain more Reformed; Erlangen will tend more to the Lutheran side — but you have Lutheran and Reformed profs teaching at both schools, if I am not mistaken).
Again, should Lutherans around the world be sad about this decision by the EKD? No, I don’t think so. Sad, and certainly much sadder than this, is the state of the Augsburg Confession in nominally Lutheran churches around the world.
McCain response: I believe that Dr. Sonntag is entirely correct. I am glad however that the EKD has formalized what everyone has known for years. Sadly, there are some Lutherans here in America who act as if the EKD is a Lutheran Church, which clearly it is not. This action continues to raise very serious questions about the Lutheran World Federation’s own understanding of what it means to be Lutheran. I also find it troubling that the EKD asserts about its relationship to the ELCA: “Covenanted relations and full communion have been established.”
If a church rejects the Augsburg Confession and indirectly the Book of Concord, can that church body be considered “Lutheran”? In my view, the ELCA is Lutheran in name only since they reject the Lutheran confessions in practice.
How odd that we should now need to send missionaries to Germany to help them understand what the Germans once understood to be true. A very sad commentary and another reminder as to why a church tied to the state is a bad thing.
Regrettable as this is, at least it is making open and official what has been really and practically true for quite some time. And it makes it easier for those who are truly confessional to distinguish themselves as fundamentally different (in a most positive way!) from the state church.
EKiD is a federation of 22 regional Protestant groups. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelical_Church_in_Germany)
Though this is in important ways tragic, I think we need to start laughing at blatant foolishness like this. I mean, COME ON, to be Evangelical is to deny the Augustana has authority for the Evangelical Church! How far can they go?
And because they are such a federation, the Leuenberg Concord plays such an important role as a “meta-confession” that, almost as a Hegelian “synthesis” (result of thesis and antithesis), surpasses the Augsburg Confession, in the views of the EKD leaders.
As Thomas Wipf, the Swiss Reformed representative of the “Community of Protestant Churches in Europe” that is behind / a result of the Leuenberg Concord also pointed out in his opinion on the proposal now rejected: Reformed churches are more interested in “confessing” than in “confessions,” esp. historic ones.
This approach might not be new on the Reformed side; most recently, as correctly referenced by Wipf, it was reasserted by Karl Barth in the 1930s during the German “church struggle.” Bonhoeffer practically sided with Barth against Sasse in this question.
Now, taking all this into consideration, this raises a question for the Lutheran territorial churches in the EKD: are we really in agreement with the Reformed, as this was formulated over 30 years ago in the Leuenberg Concord? One can’t even agree with them, or with some of their representatives, on what a confession is, it being much more “fluid” on the Reformed than on the Lutheran side. Maybe, then, the consensus formulated back in the 1970s is, today, no longer existent? Maybe one has, on the Lutheran side, become equally fluid in this confessing business and developed with the Reformed, but away from the Unaltered Augsburg Confession?
It’s almost like making the Joint Declaration on Justification the basis for a union with Rome. Let’s say the Catholics went along with it, which they probably never will, imagine the surprise on the Lutheran side when the Catholics, when asked to adopt the Augsburg Confession, say no. But I thought we were in agreement on “the gospel”???
Now, I think, in order to have fellowship between churches, it is not absolutely necessary that they have the same confessional writings in their constitutions etc. The main point is not: do you adopt the Augsburg Confession but do you confess the teachings confessed therein? Back in the 19th century, Missouri Lutherans, who had adopted the entire Book of Concord, did not have a problem with confessional Lutherans from Scandinavia who had not “officially” adopted the Formula of Concord, but they confessed the teachings presented therein.
This is why Lutherans can claim fellowship over time and place with Christians who’ve never even heard of the Augsburg Confession and the other “Lutheran” statements of faith (in part, because they lived before the 16th century), because the issue has never been: you MUST have these and these statements, but: you must confess the gospel in all its articles. If you do that in a way that agrees with what we have recognized and confessed the biblical truth to be, take our hand of fellowship. And if that’s truly the case, then we can adopt their statements of faith, and they can adopt ours, which is the honest second step to take.
And this is precisely what is not happening in the EKD, which in my view just makes the theological differences that continue to exist between the member churches visible. And these difference seem to be more than mere school differences, even if that’s always claimed. Can leaders of Lutheran territorial churches in Germany still come to terms with this reality, or have they fallen into a coma in the EKD as the comfy “sleeping car” towards the national union church, which might just have become, as predicted by observers already in the 1940s, the “grave” for the majority of Lutheran churches in Germany (the Independent Ev. Luth. Church there (SELK) being an exception)?
Cf. the perceptive Sasse quote on p. 94 of this fine essay by sainted Dr. Marquart in which he also points to the ambiguous ecclesiological nature of the EKD between church and mere church federation.
I think someone should point out that the EKD did not reject the CA as though they had had it before. In 2005, someone (Gunther Wenz) gave a paper arguing that they bring it in, and the question they asked was, “what would it mean if we did?” The “several years” Baudler mentions in the article are 4 — 4 years.
I agree with you, Rev. McCain, about people in the US who think the EKD is Lutheran. That’s absurd — by its own definition, it’s Lutheran, Union, and Reformed. But I would hesitate to criticize Professor Wendebourg too harshly. The votum cites, for example, the fact that, although the member churches might have agreement on CA VII, CA continues, and article X on the Lord’s Supper would remain an issue that divides. The issue at debate was not whether to “become” — again or in the first place — a Lutheran church. The issue was whether, being what the EKD is, it could claim to be a Church of the Augsburg Confession. I would argue, they rightly – honestly – answered “no.”
McCain: Thank you Jacob, but I’m not sure I can agree with you. While the nuances of what the EKD is, and is not, may well be part of constituting documents or the finer nuances of what the EKD is and is not, in the popular mind, I believe these are differences without meaningful distinctions. It is interesting to note that the EKD’s web site lists the Augsburg Confession under the “Faith” link on its web site. Will they now be removing the AC from their “Faith” page, and would they also not be advised to remove Luther’s Small Catechism, in which there is a glaringly clear confession of the Supper?. See: http://www.ekd.de/english/augsburg_confession.html What I will say is that it is very helpful finally for the EKD to assert in a formal manner that it is NOT a church of the Augsburg Confession. When then has the most serious consequences, or should, for those churches that have declared themselves to be in full communion with the EKD, and still claim the AC as a normative doctrinal confession, for example, the ELCA, here in the United States.
They are at last being honest about what has been the truth for years…
The EKiD rejected authentic Lutheranism decades ago. Is this really a surprise? I think not.
FWIW, the EKD is *not* a member of the Lutheran World Federation. Some, but not all, of its member churches are. As others here have noted, the EKD has never claimed to be a Lutheran church.
McCain response: Pastor Tibbetts, you are correct, EKD is not a member of the LWF. However, what difference does this *actually* make? It seems those who wish to take some small comfort in this fact are missing the larger picture of what the EKD is in the mind of the people of Germany: it is “church” to them, and they self-identify now not as Lutherans, but as “Protestants” or “Evangelicals.” The EKD web site itself surely does not help draw such fine distinctions. The fact that it is called “Kirche” speaks volumes. Further, as one reviews the EKD’s own self-description it difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to come away from the EKD’s web site with the impression that is is “merely” an organization, and not church. The way it describes its relationship to the ELCA, for example, is quite revealing as well. All in all, I believe that that what we have here are differences without meaningful distinctions, when it comes to what the EKD actually is and how it functions and is viewed by the vast majority of persons in Germany and elsewhere. Attempt to brush off the seriousness of their action to remove the AC as a foundational confession for the EKD with the assertion that “It’s never claimed to be a Lutheran Church” are, frankly, facile at best, and in the mouths of others, Pastor Tibbetts, not you of course, quite disingenuous and highly misleading.
The fact that the EKD chose to stick with the Leuenberg Concord instead of the Augsburg Confession is also interesting in view of the fact that the EKD is in the midst of a “Luther Decade” (2008-2017), centered in Wittenberg. For it raises the question: what does Luther mean to the EKD? Would Luther not have chosen the Augsburg Confession (unaltered, please!) over the Leuenberg Concord?
According to a speech given by Bishop W. Huber of Berlin, the presiding bishop of the EKD, on the occasion of the beginning of the Luther Decade last September in Wittenberg, Luther is received as a proclaimer of freedom: freedom from sin by faith, freedom for service in love. That’s certainly a central aspect of Luther’s proclamation and work and quite a vast topic for study, reflection, and practice. And given the modern predilection for everything related to freedom and liberty, this is certain a good way to generate some fruitful discussions with the wider community outside the church.
This topic leads Huber to speak about the importance of God’s word, the bible, and education (Melanchthon’s importance for the reform of the German (and European) universities is duly noted) for Luther. Yet the other means of grace that were also very dear to Luther (and Christ), baptism and communion, are not mentioned, as they would be too controversial within the EKD, as the most recent discussion on the Augsburg Confession shows.
This also then leads to silence about Luther as a penetrating teacher of the doctrine of Christ, which, as we know, would also have been quite controversial in the EKD and its blend of Reformed, Union, and Lutheran thinking. Yet this doctrine of Christ would be important, rewarding, and helpful for a fresh reconsideration and rediscovery not just in and by itself, but also for the reflection on what it means that God became man, that he deals with man through man in particular (vocations) and through creation in general (means of grace); that the human body matters to God from beginning to end. This too would have been helpful in Germany where more than 100,000 abortions are conducted every year; but understandably, this too would have been controversial, across the confessions.
Huber also speaks about the “priesthood of all believers,” and the elimination of spiritual differences between Christians based on one’s vocation that goes with it, which is certainly a worthy and important point to make when reflecting on Luther’s importance for us today. However, the ordained ministry, about which Luther also had good and important things to say, is not mentioned. A doctrine and appreciation of the “means” (see preceding paragr.) is not to be found in Huber’s presentation; focus is on the ends (freedom from / for; immediate access to God). Here the Augsburg Confession, its arts. five and fourteen spelling out and confessing this aspect of Luther’s rediscovery of God’s word, would also pose some challenges for the EKD today.
Then, finally reflecting on the ecumenical meaning of Luther’s reformation, he states: “The churches emerging from the reformation see themselves in continuity with the early church. Foundational for them all are, along with Holy Scripture, the confessions of the early church.” That’s right: the confessions of the early church is what the reformation churches have in common (and these they, of course, also have in common with the Roman Church). Not to over-interpret this brief statement, but clearly, he didn’t mention, e.g., Luther’s Small Catechism, that bible for the laity; he didn’t mention the highly irenic and highly ecumenical Augsburg Confession which even Calvin boasted to have signed, albeit in its altered version.
In summary, Luther – yes, Augsburg Confession – no. That seems to be the “official” EKD stance in this matter. Of course, as seen, the Luther that is loudly affirmed is not the whole Luther who wholly affirmed the Augsburg Confession which was among the first confessional summaries of his rediscoveries from God’s word.
In other words, the refusal to adopt the AC by the EKD can hide behind many a legal argument; but at the end of the day, “it’s the theology, stupid!” How you can be Lutheran and in fellowship with those who want to have Luther but not the Augsburg Confession continues to mystify me.
That said, and the criticisms made, for those who read German Huber’s speech is still a pretty good overview of Luther’s work and relevance for today in church and society. I wish we had something similar in this country from someone in a similar office today (quoting that good old 19th century stuff is good, but…) to lay out for us again the importance of Luther and his work for the church as a whole (maybe it exists and is just not known to me). Simply turning his momentous work into a call to be more active in missions can’t be the whole story, can it?
For the sake of not being misleading, I want to clarify that my post had to do with the remark about Prof. Wendebourg and Word Alone. I’m glad to see it’s been removed. As for the discussion actually occurring, I still fail to see the significance of the EKD decision. How is it not just return to the status quo, which was not even in question until 2005?
McCain: Jacob, perhaps you can review my responses to the previous comments if you truly don’t seen any “significance” in the EKD decision. And the only reason I removed the remark about Wendenbourg is so as not to distract from the main point of the article. The concern is very much valid and I believe WordAlone needs seriously to consider why/how this person’s continuing involvement in the WordAlone movement as a ‘theological advisor’ is ultimately helpful.
Sasse said it years ago: by going into the EKD, the Lutheran territorial churches in Germany were “sleepwalking into unionism”, and Lutheran doctrine would only be tolerated as a school of opinion in the EKD for a limited period of time.