Do We Still Have Joy in our Confession?
I have served, in various capacities, in The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s national structure, now for twenty-five years, beginning as an instructor of systematic theology at one of our seminaries, as a parish pastor, as a Synodical district communications director, as a member of one of district adjudication boards, as assistant to two of our church body presidents, as a director at our Synod’s historical institute, as president and chief executive of our Synods’ publishing house, and now, in my present position, as the publisher at Concordia Publishing House. My roots in this church body go back to my childhood. I am the son of two devoted Lutheran day school teachers, serving in Warrington, Florida in the Synod’s Southern District, for many, many years, going on eventually, in the case of my father, to serve as a pastor in our Synod, and now most recently, my mother, who after many decades of service as a teacher, in her retirement has taken classes at our seminary in Fort Wayne and will be graduating as a deaconess on May 20 of this year. Indeed, if anyone would be termed a Missouri Synod Lutheran, I’m a Pharisee of the Pharisees, so to speak.
One thing that has continually, frankly, angered me, is the way that lifelong Missouri Synod Lutherans, and sadly, most often, Lutherans in positions of leadership in this church body, have enjoyed making snide and nasty remarks about The LCMS, in an attempt to be funny, but actually, behind these kinds of passive-aggressive remarks is actually an indication that these people do not really love, anymore, what has always made The LCMS so great: her determination to cling to the Lutheran Confessions, and the joy that such confession brings. I saw this joy, always and often, in my parents and in the various places I served and in the great men I served beside: Dr. Robert Preus, Dr. Kurt Marquart and all the other find faculty at CTS Fort Wayne. I saw it in Dr. Alvin Barry and Dr. Robert Kuhn, the two presidents I served with, and in the host of wonderful men and women I have served with since, to this day. I am more than sick and tired of the truly stupid remarks made that The LCMS is “German” or that The LCMS has never really cared about outreach. That is simply not true and such comments always remind me of the stuff I scraped off my shoes after visiting my congregant’s dairy cattle milking barns on my early morning visits around the parish.
Hermann Sasse lays out a wonderful challenge to us all, that I’d like to share with you. He already in the fifties put his finger on a problem in the Missouri Synod, taking for granted the Lutheran Confessions and regarding them simply as merely doctrinal assertions. Where is the joy, he asks? Indeed, friends, where is the joy that should characterize our confession as Lutherans? Thanks to Pastor Harrison, President of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod for sharing this great quote from Sasse:
The great rediscovery of the Confession of the church, which was the most joyous experience of the German Lutherans in the years between the two world wars, was not shared by our American brethren in the faith. For this reason even where, as is the case in Missouri, the unshakable authority of the Confession is held in complete earnest, there is nevertheless lacking in the affirmation of the Confession the great joy which should accompany genuine confessional loyalty. To confess, exhomologeisthai, confiteri always includes praise to God. Therefore Luther rightly counted the “Te Deum laudamus, te Dominum confitemur . . .” [in Kurzes Bekenntnis vom … Sakrament 1545; WA 54.141-167; LW 38.279; Aland no. 661] among the Confessions.
Are we mistaken if we miss this joy with our brethren in the Missouri Synod when they speak of the Confession? Are we mistaken in believing that their understanding of the doctrine is wholly orthodox, but only in the sense of correct doctrine, while real orthodoxy includes a joyous praise to God? In the case of the old Missouri of Walther it is still plainly noticeable that here even as in the classical time of Orthodoxy, dogma and liturgy belong together—how greatly St. Louis formerly influenced liturgy in America! If it were still so today would not then orthodox Lutheranism in particular have something of importance to say to the liturgical movement in America? Christian America, more than many Lutherans sense, waits today for a word from Lutheranism. Members of the Protestant churches in the United States sense the fact that the surrender of the confession of the fathers which has taken place in all these churches during the past century, constitutes an irreparable loss of something that is essential for church and for Christianity. The so-called new orthodoxy (neo orthodoxy) of Reinhold Niebuhr[1] and of the American adherents of Barth is only a weak substitute for what has been lost. But Lutheranism keeps silence. It appears about to follow the Reformed Churches on the way to confessionless-ness and with this step to lose its mission to all of Christendom, even as European Lutheranism missed every great opportunity during its history.
Sasse, Letters to Lutheran Pastors 20, Confession and Theology in the Missouri Synod.
[1] Reinhold Niebuhr 1892-1971, born in Wright City, Missouri. Attended Eden Theological Seminary, Webster Groves (St. Louis), professor at Union Theological Seminary, N.Y.C. 1928-1960, lectured and wrote on ethics, political liberalism, dialectical theology. LC p. 577. MH
I for one have had great joy in our Confessions, for it was upon reading the BOC after visiting an LCMS congregation after college that I learned I was a Lutheran and had found the true visible church on earth.
It’s why I’ve taken all three congregations I’ve pastored through the confessions.
I am upset, upon reading the BOC (multiple times now), to learn that many LCMS churches ARE NOT equally adhering to the BOC!
The church I grew up in, Divine Shepherd LCMS in Milwaukee, WI is a joke to be considered Lutheran. I didn’t know what the BOC was until College. This church had NO liturgy, all Praise Music, people regularly speaking in tongues!!!!
What is Lutheran about that?!??!
I am just grateful I have found a truly Lutheran congregation that adheres to the Augsburg Confession, but of course, I have to drive 30 minutes away from my home in the NW suburbs of Chicago, because most of the LCMS churches around here ARE NOT Confessional and don’t look like places that are even aware of the existence of the BOC!!!!
By the way, I love your blog. Keep it up, sir!
Paul, I think you have a point here. However, I think it goes deeper than just those who do not cling to the teachings of the BOC. Certainly there are those who mock the teaching of the LCMS even as they have taken vows to uphold them. Certainly there are those who with a certain cunning disdain teach contrary to what we have all agreed and make condescending remarks about the LCMS. However, I have also been growing concerned about the way I have heard many “confessional” or “conservatives” speak about the LCMS with equal disdain. This has come about due to a lack of trust in leadership and institutions in general. Though I believe that we must not put our trust in princes nor in institutions I believe such immature rebellious anti-institutional attitudes are not helpful. No church body made up of sinners and led by the same will be perfect. However, if you have chosen to be a part of it, made a vow to walk in unity, then I think instead of adding to the problem by talking behind your mother’s back – pitch in and help.
Paul,
I’m Life-long LCMS. I love the confessions. I agree with you that the confessions are too widely ignored by those in our church body. I love the quote from Hermann Sasse. Everyone in the LCMS needs to read this.
But you talk of Joy! JOY! The difficulty here is that so many who think like you and promote the confessions are not as nice as you. They put down their brothers and sisters and treat them as if they are dumb or heretical, or both. Of course this happens on both sides, but that is no excuse!
We need to make the call you are making, but we need to do it with Grace and Truth. Walking around with spiritual six-shooters calling others NON-LUTHERAN or claiming that some church here is doing it wrong or some church there is doing it wrong will only further the divide that we currently have.
To have joy in the confessions, we need to love each other, even those of us who are in error. Only in love will this problem be corrected.
I too have joy in the confessions, but sadness about the people. Wasn’t this just in the Gospel lesson? Love your enemies? eh?
President Harrison is doing a great job of capturing this notion, we need to rally behind him!!
What is it about the Lutheran Confessions that should make Lutheran Christians uniquely joyful, in a somehow different way than other protestant Christians who believe that they are saved by grace alone?
Jeff, you’ll have to read the Lutheran Confessions to find out!!!
: )
If we complain enough about the lack of joy, it is bound to come back. I’m sure of it.
Bob, you missed the point of the post, but otherwise good comment.
If a resurgence of joy in our confessions is to spread among the synod, I believe that it will be championed by those of us who are adult converts to Lutheranism. Given the current state of the American church, it is very easy for those of us who have toiled in legalism to sense the acute emotion hidden in the texts and resonate with its truths. I would encourage adult converts to make concerted efforts share their stories as often as possible with their “life long lutheran” brothers and sisters in the context of the liberation that the teachings of the confessions provide.
No man appreciates drinking a glass of water like the man who has spent so long dying of thirst.
If we want joy in our confession to be promenant in our synod, the “crisis” of preaching, as President Harrison put it, needs to be addressed and corrected. This is the real sickness that is plaguing our synod. Read Luther, Walther, or Maier’s sermons, and you will see the gold standard for preaching. Reading accounts on how they preached, they didn’t read from a sheet of paper, but opened their bible and preached the text. How could they do that? They were workman approved by God, they KNEW the Word of God. Watch President Harrison’s presentation to the LCEF, you’ll get a taste of it.
McCain response: I like what you have to say here, though I would offer a correction. I am reading Law/Gospel right now and Walther is very much committed to a written manuscript. I prefer not to use a manuscript, I believe it makes for better communication, but please do not try to suggest that people using a manuscript are not “preaching from the Bible.”
@Michael Mapus
I’m sorry if I came across that way, Walter Maier used a manuscript in his preaching. But he didn’t sound like he was giving a paper at one of our symposia’s. Many times it has been noted, WAM would start with the manuscript, then the next you know, he’s pulling in bible verses and just starts preaching. If you listen very closely to one of his sermons, you can almost tell when that transition takes place. I think your right when it comes to the issue of comunication.
When I started giving presentations and conducting meetings at my place of employment, I would strictly work from a script and it was tortureous for those present. I quickly learned, while still using an outline, you must know your material! It has to be a knowledge that’s above and beyond simply writing somthing down on a piece of paper. I found this also to be true when leading a bible study.
What is it about the Lutheran Confessions that should make Lutheran Christians uniquely joyful, in a somehow different way than other protestant Christians who believe that they are saved by grace alone?
The fullness of the gifts of Christ in Word AND Sacrament to which the Confessions testify.
@ptmccain
I have and continue to do so. It’s on my Kindle!
Having grown up LCMS, but not within it for the past 20 years, I’d like to add one possible reason for the lack of joy: a deep-seated suspicion of anything that smacks of Enthusiasm.
Hi Jeff, interesting remarks, but they do not really pertain to the point of Dr. Sasse’s remarks.
Ah, the Enthusiasts. Luther had some rather strong words for Die Schwaermer.
Does this mean the LCMS will abandon the Church Growth Movement in favor of the Confessional Growth Movement.
That sounds like one of those, “So when did you stop beating your wife?” questions. When you find the perfect Lutheran church, Jim, let me know. I suspect you’ll be searching a long time.
For there to be joy, there needs to be love, and an understanding of grace. Grace, as in “there but for the undeserved kindness of God in Christ go I.” I sometimes get the feeling that many who subscribe to the BOC think they’ve “made a decision for Luther” instead of being brought to good, sound doctrine by the Spirit, by grace. If we recover grace, we will recover joy, and perhaps then we will find a better voice with which to speak the truth to others. Thanks so much for a really thought provoking blog!
I think my point about Luther’s condemnation of the “enthusiasts” as a reason why Lutherans often fail to exhibit joy is worthy of discussion.
I think it’s an unfortunate choice of words (or translated word) that has led Lutherans to be generally suspicious of too much emotion, including joy, and so they are usually regarded as more stoic than joyful.
I say it’s an unfortunate choice of words because, in the English at least, it is a word that primarily refers to the emotions, particularly excited or very happy emotions. But Luther wasn’t talking about emotions; rather, he was condemning people who believed that they had authoritative teaching from the Spirit of God within themselves, without the written Word of God. I think a better word would have been “spiritists” or “spiritualists.”
Here’s an extended quote from the BOC, but since it’s on my Kindle, I don’t know what section or page:
“In issues relating to the spoken, outward Word, we must firmly hold that God grants His Spirit or grace to no one except through or with the preceding outward Word (Galatians 3:2, 5) This protects us from the enthusiasts (i.e., souls who boast that they have the Spirit without and before the Word). They judge Scripture or the spoken Word and explain and stretch it at their pleasure, as Munzer did… Actually, the papacy too is nothing but sheer enthusiasm. The pope boasts that all rights exist in the shrine of his heart. Whatever he decides and commands within his church is from the Spirit and is right, even though it is above and contrary to Scripture and the spoken Word… All this is the old devil and old serpent (Revelation 12:9) who also turned Adam and Eve into enthusiasts.”
Honestly guys, I really must vote for Christine’s answer. The joy is not (I think) so much in the confessions as in the link to Jesus that they may be. Pastor McCain said something about this in an earlier blog. The Word (whether confession or scripture) and the sacraments bring us to Jesus, Who is our source of joy.
I think that the conservative-liberal debate is a large part of the gloom, with both sides prophesying doom because of the other sides’ position. If we allow ourselves to be swept up in it, we end up putting our eyes on the storm, instead of on Jesus, and there we begin to sink.
The Confessions (BOC) rock!!! As one who was received in the LCMS in 2003, I find the Confessions to be clear guidelines when conversing with other Christians, and also other Lutherans here in Scandinavia.
Where there is no belief in or appreciation of the enormity of sin, there can only be human or worldly joy. But through the service of the Word we poor sinful beings are put in the real presence of grace personified and receive true joy, intellectual as well as emotional, the first fruits of the promise.
We need faitful confessional leaders, and they need our prayers.
…”Most of all, keep them faithful to their promise to carry out their office according to Your Holy Word and in accord with the Lutheran Confessions.”… For The Leaders of Our Synod, Lutheran Book of Prayer, Fifth Edition.
Maybe it will take persecution for this joy to happen? I cringe at the thought of it, but if that what it takes.
The Joy of the confessions is that page after page speaks of freedom, of the end of doubt, the end of bound conciences and the certainty of God’s loving mercy, that Christ is for us, His promises are true and have never failed.
I agree with Pastor McCain that there is a lack of joy in our confession. It both saddens me and angers me. I think there are two reasons why this is.
First, in our postmodern age where there is no such thing as ultimate truth, we are embarrassed over the claim that our Lutheran Confessions are faithful and true expositions of the truth of Holy Scripture. To confess THE truth strikes many people (including our members) as being arrogant, so we look for ways to poke fun at ourselves. (E.g. Why must you be quiet when you pass the Lutheran section in Heaven? Because they think they are the only ones there. Blah, blah, blah…)
Secondly, we are ashamed in confessing the truth when it doesn’t produce the outward success in terms of attendance and dollars as the non-denom church down the street. In lusting after their numbers and in a desperate attempt to be “liked”, we copy their methods which usually means watering down our confession. The confession becomes an annoyance to many rather than a joy and a comfort.
Rather than moan or groan over this, i think the answer is to expose our people to the Confessions. Actually knowing what we confess as Lutherans rather than believing the caricature of Lutheranism that is out there is essential. As several of the respondents on thsi post have said, it was the actual reading and studying of the Confessions in college and seminary which made me appreciate them and want to subscribe to them unconditionally in my ordination vows. Help your people read the Confessions. Have a Bible Study on the Augsburg Confession at least and maybe on the Formula of Concord. Luther’s Large Catechism is good as well. Help recover the joy.