Thursday Theology #577
July 2, 2009
Topic: Augsburg Confessional Theology and the Sexuality Debate
Part Two: A Canadian Sequel to Last Week's Post.
Colleagues,
One of the responses to last week's post came from Canada. Co-crosser Hal
Remus alerted me to the parallel debate in the ELCIC [Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Canada] and he sent me the "nay" and the "yea" documents, both of
which I pass on to you here. Just plain "super," to my mind, was the
Augsburg-Confession-grounding of the yea-sayers.
Hal tells me that this Augsburg-anchored text comes from "a small group of
Alberta pastors . . . in response to their fellow Alberta pastors who
issued a Confessional Ministerium Statement stating their convictions that the
ELCIC was "depart[ing] from the traditional faith and practice of the Church"
with its openness on the homosexual issue.
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We the members of the Confessional Ministerium have entered into this
fellowship for mutual encouragement and accountability, as we work to fulfill the
vows we made at our ordination. We do so for our sake, for the sake of the
congregations we serve, and for the sake of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in Canada.
We are aware of forces within the ELCIC that would divert it from the
traditional faith and practice of the Church catholic, thus we believe it
necessary to confess and call attention to the following.
We confess that the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God and the norm for
the faith of the Church, containing all things necessary for salvation. As
such the Bible is to be read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain
canonical sense, respectful of the church's historic and consensual reading.
We accept, teach, and confess the Apostles', Nicene and Athanasian
Creeds. We also acknowledge the Lutheran Confessions as true witnesses and
faithful expositions of the Holy Scriptures.
We confess the Holy Sacrament of Baptism in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit to be the means through which individuals are brought into
the body of Christ. We confess the Sacrament of Holy Communion to be the
means by which the baptized believer is nourished by the reception of the true
body and blood of Jesus Christ. Through these sacraments and through the rite
of confession and absolution, the Christian receives forgiveness of sins.
We submit to and proclaim the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, humanity's only Saviour from sin, judgment and hell. By
His atoning death and glorious resurrection, He secured the redemption of
all creation. We proclaim this Gospel in the hope that all will come to Him
in repentance and faith.
We acknowledge and submit to the exercise of proper and Godly authority
within the church by those called and set apart for the ministry of
oversight. We also acknowledge that those called to this ministry, whether Pastors,
Deacons, or Bishops, are to exercise that authority within the bounds of
Scripture, Creeds, and the Lutheran Confessions.
We acknowledge the marriage relationship of one man and one woman as an
order of God's good creation. This relationship is the proper place for
sexual intimacy, the basis of the family, and the primary place where people are
instructed and grow in faith. Children are to be welcomed as a gift to the
marriage relationship. We repent of our failures to maintain and uphold this
standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage
and abstinence and support for those who are not married.
While we hope and pray the ELCIC will not choose to depart from the
traditional faith and practice of the Church we believe it necessary, as leaders
of congregations, to prepare for that possibility and prayerfully discern
in which direction we must go in order that we might preserve our unity with
the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We make this statement, aware of our complete and total dependence on the
grace of God. We trust the Holy Spirit will complete what is lacking, lead
and guide us, and our congregations in faithful discipleship.
The response:
WE BELIEVE IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST
An Open Letter to the Rostered Leaders and Congregations of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in Canada
April 8, 2009
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the communion of
the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Every generation encounters its own crisis of faith. Each crisis is a call
for the church to return to the heart of its faith in order to reflect and
discern. What does it mean to be church? What is the Gospel? What do the Holy
Scriptures and the Confessions say concerning the issues? Our identity as
Lutherans is centered in the Gospel, articulated most clearly in Article IV
on Justification in The Augsburg Confession:
Furthermore, it is taught that we cannot obtain forgiveness of sin and
righteousness before God through our merit, work, or satisfactions, but that we
receive forgiveness of sin and become righteous before God out of grace for
Christ's sake through faith when we believe that Christ has suffered for us
and that for his sake our sin is forgiven and righteousness and eternal life
are given to us. For God will regard and reckon this faith as righteousness
in his sight, as St. Paul says in Romans 3[:21-26] and 4[:5] (CA IV:1-3,
Kolb, Wengert, p. 38, 40).
Healthy discussion on issues of concern is made possible because our
identity as Lutherans is never in question. As the reformers so carefully
summarized our faith in Article IV, we "receive forgiveness of sin and become
righteous before God out of grace for Christ's sake through faith...." Christ is
the peace between us and the source of our unity (Ephesians 2:14-22). Our
unity in Christ and as the church is a gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that
despite our most vigorous disagreements, we are nonetheless part of the one
body of Christ. We have been baptized into Christ and so we belong to him
and relate to one another as one family of God. "There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:5-6).
Yet, there are some pastors who have formed a group called the
"Confessional Ministerium" who seek to separate themselves from the ELCIC. The
Confessional Ministerium has created a brochure entitled, "The Confessional
Ministerium: The Courage to Be Lutheran." This brochure states that there are "forces
within the ELCIC" who have taken a "revisionist understanding of the
gospel" with regard to "the heated controversies regarding human sexuality and the
attending profound gift of God in marriage." The members of the
Confessional Ministerium have also committed to resign from the ELCIC as a group "when
we agree that the gospel has been abandoned."
The purpose of this open letter to the churches is to provide a response to
the Confessional Ministerium, especially with regard to the allegations
that the church has revised and is about to abandon the Gospel. To do this we
return to the Lutheran Confessions to seek clarity on the question: What IS
the Gospel? We must never tire of asking this fundamental question as it is
the teaching upon which the church stands or falls. Finally, this letter is
also a call to seek the unity of the church, the body of Christ, and to
refrain from schism.
We confess our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But what is the Gospel?
In The Apology of The Augsburg
Confession the following definition of the Gospel is given: the Gospel is,
"strictly speaking, the promise of the forgiveness of sins and justification
on account of Christ" (Ap IV:43, Kolb, Wengert, p. 127).
In THE FREEDOM OF A CHRISTIAN, Luther also writes: "The Word is the gospel
of God concerning his Son, who was made flesh, suffered, rose from the dead,
and was glorified through the Spirit who sanctifies. To preach Christ means
to feed the soul, make it righteous, set it free, and save it, provided it
believes the preaching" (Dillenberger, ed., p. 55).
These two beautiful passages ring out like a clarion bell almost five
centuries after they were originally written. They are decisive in their
proclamation of the Gospel as "the promise of the forgiveness of sins and
justification because of Christ." Because God is the God of steadfast love, God's
promises are trustworthy and true. They are eternally valid. In Baptism our
identity is forever changed. God freely chooses to make us sons and daughters of
God, members of God's family. Through the life, death, and resurrection of
Christ, God has chosen to extend the promise of forgiveness of sins to us.
This is the Gospel.
So where do we as human beings come in? The only way to receive a promise
is to trust that God's promise in Christ is for us too, that is, to have
faith in the promise. Such faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. "For faith does
not justify or save because it is a worthy work in and of itself, but only
because it receives the promised mercy" (Ap IV:56, Kolb, Wengert, p. 129). And
as Paul also writes, "... if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved" (Romans 10:9).
The reformers expressed two main concerns in articulating the Gospel as
God's promise. First, it makes Christ necessary for salvation. The Gospel is
the exclusive domain of what God is doing for us. All of our own efforts to
save ourselves through our own good deeds, achievements, or personal piety
fall short. "There is no one who is righteous, not even one...there is no one who
seeks God" (Romans 3:10-11). Expanding on this passage in Romans, Luther
writes: "When you have learned this you will know that you need Christ, who
suffered and rose again for you so that, if you believe in him, you may
through this faith become a new man in so far as your sins are forgiven and you
are justified by the merits of another, namely of Christ alone" (FREEDOM OF A
CHRISTIAN, Dillenberger, p. 56).
Second, the reformers had a pastoral concern to comfort the terrified
consciences of those who believed themselves condemned because of their inability
to fulfill the law or meet some moral standard of perfection and purity. If
we are responsible for our own salvation, then how can we ever be assured
that we have done enough, or loved enough, or are perfect enough? The
reformers therefore rejected as "incorrect and harmful when it is taught that the
gospel is, strictly speaking, a proclamation of repentance or retribution and
not exclusively a proclamation of grace. For in this way the gospel is
again made into a teaching of the law, the merit of Christ and the Holy
Scriptures are obscured, Christians are robbed of true comfort, and the door is
opened again to the papacy" (FC Ep V:11, Kolb, Wengert, p.501).
In summary, the Gospel makes Christ necessary for salvation and comforts
terrified consciences. The Gospel is the pure expression of God's
unconditional and gracious love for the ungodly, the condemned, sinners, that is, for
us all. In short, the Gospel is about what God is doing through Christ for
us. It is never about what human beings can do to save themselves.
Let us now turn to the claims found in the brochure entitled, "The
Confessional Ministerium: The Courage to be Lutheran." The Confessional Ministerium
expresses deep concern "for the direction the ELCIC has been taking towards
a revisionist understanding of the gospel." Has the ELCIC, through its
constitution, faith, and practice ceased to profess the Gospel as "the
forgiveness of sins and justification because of Christ"? As a human institution, its
actions reflect the paradox that we are at the same time saint and sinner.
Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit has created the church and is found within it
whenever the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered.
Wherever Christ alone is proclaimed and terrified consciences are thereby
comforted, THERE is the Holy Spirit and THERE is the church.
The Confessional Ministerium, on the other hand, insists that "the
traditional faith and practice of the Church catholic" on the question of human
sexuality and marriage is a matter of the Gospel. To make the church's
historical understanding of human sexuality and marriage a matter of the Gospel is
precisely where the Confessional Ministerium errs. For this would mean that
faith alone in Christ alone is no longer sufficient. One must also have an
unwavering faith in a particular practice of the church. But this is to turn
the UNCONDITIONAL Gospel of Christ into a CONDITIONAL gospel, which is no
Gospel at all.
Ironically, those who accuse others of abandoning the Gospel have
themselves revised and abandoned it by turning it into law. Rather than confessing
that faith in the Gospel is sufficient for salvation, the Confessional
Ministerium wants to add something extra to it, that is, to make a particular
traditional practice of the church a requirement of faith equivalent to faith in
the Gospel. However, "Faith is that worship which receives the benefits
that God offers; the righteousness of the law is that worship which offers God
our own merits. God wants to be honored by faith..." (Ap IV:49, Kolb, Wengert,
p. 128). How is the Confessional Ministerium's advocacy of the
righteousness of the law different from the "judaizers" that Paul refutes in Galatians,
those who wished to add circumcision as a requirement or condition for
believers? In response to those who sought the righteousness of the law, Paul
exclaims: "I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through
the law, then Christ died for nothing" (Galatians 2:21).
As Robert W. Jenson wrote in LUTHERANISM: THE THEOLOGICAL MOVEMENT AND ITS
CONFESSIONAL WRITINGS, " 'The gospel' is the Reformation label for that
promise which, if true at all, is unconditional: the promise made in the name of
one who has already satisfied the condition of death and therefore has all
future in his gift.... The gospel tolerates no conditions. It is itself
unconditional promise" (p. 44). The reformers also had strong words for those in
their day who denied that faith in the promise was enough for salvation:
"Therefore those who deny that faith justifies do away with both the gospel and
Christ and teach nothing but law" (Ap IV:70, Kolb, Wengert, p. 132). In his
Large Catechism Luther writes: "...all who would seek to merit holiness
through their works rather than through the gospel and the forgiveness of sin
HAVE EXPELLED AND SEPARATED THEMSELVES FROM [THE CHRISTIAN] COMMUNITY"
(emphasis added, LC, Part II, The Third Article: 56, Kolb, Wengert, p. 438).
We are grieved that members of the Confessional Ministerium are committed
to separating themselves from the church on the basis of a matter that is not
the Gospel. In The Large Catechism, Luther taught that the church, as a
creation of the Holy Spirit, lives under the banner of God's grace and
forgiveness: "Further we believe that in this Christian community we have the
forgiveness of sins, which takes place through the holy sacraments and absolution
as well as through all the comforting words of the entire gospel" (LC, Part
II, The Third Article: 54, Kolb, Wengert, p. 438). As such, the church is
to be a place where "there is full forgiveness of sins, both in that God
forgives us and that we forgive, bear with, and aid one another" (LC, Part II,
The Third Article: 55, Kolb, Wengert, p. 438). As St. John writes: "Beloved,
let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is
born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7).
We appeal to all brothers and sisters in Christ to trust that "The Holy
Spirit will remain with the holy community or Christian people until the Last
Day" (LC, Part II, The Third Article: 53, Kolb, Wengert, p. 438). The church
is a gift of the Holy Spirit and, by faith, we trust that the Spirit abides
with the ELCIC to this day and into the future as the ELCIC proclaims the
Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people. Along with the reformers who expressed
their true desire for unity in the church, we call upon all pastors and
congregations to remember that "we are all enlisted under one Christ, we are all
to live together in one communion and in one church" (CA Preface: 4, Kolb,
Wengert, p.30).
"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and
sisters." Amen. (Galatians 6:18).
Abbreviations:
Ap - The Apology of the Augsburg Confession
CA - CONFESSIO AUGUSTANA (The Augsburg Confession)
FC - The Formula of Concord
LC - The Large Catechism
Sources:
The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Edited by Robert Kolb and
Timothy Wengert. Fortress Press: Minneapolis, 2000.
Gritsch, Eric W. and Jenson, Robert W., Lutheranism: The Theological
Movement and Its Confessional Writings. Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1976.
Luther, Martin. "The Freedom of a Christian" In Martin Luther: Selections
from His Writings. Edited by
John Dillenberger. Anchor Books: New York, 1962.
