There’s a pretty good paragraph here on p. 180, which can be applied, well, to just about any matter involving doctrine and practice.

The Procrustean bed of hermeneutical assumption can be a dangerous and even deadly game of losing the trees for the forest, and for that matter the forest for the trees. We must never place our ideological assumption beyond the reach of close scrutiny or the critical examination of scripture and the confessional witness. It is the ongoing task of the church in every age to clarify its hermeneutical assumptions and methodology regarding its theology and practice of liturgy in light of cultural and scientific change. Genuine theological divergence over the truth of the gospel and the right administration of the sacraments must never be glossed over. Yet differences of opinion over humanly instituted, external rites and ceremonies in liturgy are unnecessarily divisive to the unity of the church. How can we constructively put this distinction into practice for the sake of the church?

What Waddell writes here strikes a chord, particularly because it seems that some have recently pronounced that the adoption of a doctrinal statement by a church body decisively places that statement beyond “the critical examination of scripture and the confessional witness.”

Fun! Thanks to Bruce.

http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=51889

For some of the questions, remember the context of the quiz. There are Calvinists, Zwinglians, and Romanists present.

This is from modernreformation.org

The Controversy Concerning Predestination

by C.F. W. Walther

This essay was originally published in 1881 by Concordia Publishing House (St. Louis, MO). It was translated into English by Aug. Crull, and was presented with the original subtitle: Trustworthy advice for pious Christians that would like to know whose doctrine in the present controversy concerning predestination is Lutheran, and whose is not. This tract is now in the public domain.

Dear Reader: If in a doctrinal controversy we wish to find out which side contends for the truth, and which side contends for error, it is necessary above all things to understand thoroughly, which is the actual controverted point in question.

For this reason false teachers have at all times endeavored to shift and misstate the actual controverted point in the doctrinal controversies stirred up by them. Some Zwinglians of old, for instance, acted upon this principle. The chief controverted point in the dispute between them and Luther was this: whether the true body and the true blood of Christ is present in, with, and under the blessed bread and wine, is distributed by the ministers and therefore also taken and partaken of with the mouth by all communicants. This Luther had affirmed, but the Zwinglians had denied it. However, when Luther proved his doctrine so clearly from the Word of God and confuted the Zwinglian doctrine so powerfully, that everybody saw and the Zwinglians themselves perceived, that they had been defeated: some of the latter shifted the controverted point, asserting that they had only contested the doctrine, that the body of Christ is present in the Lord’s Supper like an ordinary body and is crushed by the teeth of the communicants. Luther, it is true, had really used this expression once; but he had added at the same time, how he meant it, namely not in that gross manner which the Capernaites of old had imputed to Christ (John 6:52-60), but in this sense that the essential body of Christ is really and truly present and is really and truly eaten with the bodily mouth.

The teachers of the pure doctrine, however, have always above all things stated precisely the actual controverted point in question, whenever controversies had arisen. A plain proof of this, among other things, is our dear Formula of Concord. For when after Luther’s death serious controversies concerning certain points of doctrine had arisen within our Lutheran church, which controversies were to be adjusted by means of the Formula of Concord, the latter in the first place always stated the actual controverted point in every one of these articles. If we look into the Formula of Concord, we find that the first ten articles of this book always begin with the words: “Status controversiae. The chief question in this controversy.” However by the word: “The chief question” nothing else is understood but: “The chief controverted point.” Only the eleventh article, treating of predestination, does not begin thus; and why not? For no other reason but because (as the first Part of the Formula of Concord expressly states in the very beginning) at that time “no public controversy had arisen (yet) among the theologians of the Augsburg Confession.” (Compare the new Jubilee edition of the Book of Concord, page 378. New Market edition page 353.)

But because now, within the American-Lutheran church, a “public controversy has arisen” concerning the doctrine of predestination, it is of course necessary, in order that no one may “fish in troubled waters”, and that all pious Christians, even the most simple, may see their way clearly in this “controversy” that has arisen, to state in the first place and above all things the actual controverted point in the present controversy. What, then, is the actual, and at the same time the chief controverted point?

It consists simply in the following twofold question: 1st, whether God from eternity, before the foundations of the world were laid, out of pure mercy and only for the sake of the most holy merit of Christ, elected and ordained the chosen children of God to salvation and whatever pertains to it, consequently also to faith, repentance, and conversion; or 2nd, whether in His election God took into consideration anything good in man, namely the foreseen conduct of man, the foreseen non-resistance, and the foreseen persevering faith, and thus elected certain persons to salvation in consideration of, with respect to, on account of, or in consequence of their conduct, their non-resistance, and their faith. The first of these questions we affirm, while our opponents deny it, but the second question we deny, while our opponents affirm it.

Continue reading “Walther on Predestination” →

One of my professors years ago recounted a particular conversation with certain Jehovah’s Witnesses. He became frustrated with their frequent appeals to the authority of scripture that had been taken out of context. So, he demonstrated for them how important context can be. Asking for their Bible, he looked up Matthew 27:5, which is summarized: “Judas … went and hanged himself.” Continuing the citation, he then looked up Jesus’ response in Luke 10:37, “Go and do likewise.” Finally, he looked up Jesus’ words in John 13:27, “What you do, do quickly.” I doubt that these JWs obeyed this collection of scripture passages literally, and they may not have even gotten the point: the context of the Bible passages we cite can be very important.

This is found in volume 1, p. 82. The fruits of what is described in the extended quotation are plain to see in the ELCA today, and elsewhere. This remains an important warning for confessional Lutherans today. — ed.

It is extremely important to recognize how necessary it is to place the church’s teachers under obligation not merely not to depart from the Symbols [Creeds and Confessions] in doctrine but also in terminology. Perhaps no other time than our own so proves how necessary it is that those who teach publicly in the church use the right terminology. Recent theologians use language that is incomprehensible not only to the laypeople but also to most pastors. Not only can such horrible, monstrous language not promote explanation of the truth, but it must also inevitably produce error. Our old theologians, even when they are discussing ever so important and difficult points of doctrine, use language that everyone can understand. Continue reading “Confessional Language: C.F.W. Walther’s Essays for the Church” →

We judge that the greatest possible public concord which can be maintained without offending consciences ought to be preferred to all other interests. Apology XV, 52

What a bold judgment to make, and useful! So you’d like your church body to have a doctrinal statement that expresses something in more detail than what is confessed in the Book of Concord? If it is not a matter of conscience, and the resulting doctrinal statement would disrupt the concord of the church, then it is contrary to the Apology to go ahead and adopt the doctrinal statement.

Here’s another quote from Waddell’s book. It begins with a quote from the Solid Declaration, article X. The translation I’ve pasted here differs from the one Waddell used.

14] For here it is no longer a question concerning external matters of indifference, which in their nature and essence are and remain of themselves free, and accordingly can admit of no command or prohibition that they be employed or omitted; but it is a question, in the first place, concerning the eminent article of our Christian faith, as the apostle testifies, that the truth of the Gospel might continue, which is obscured and perverted by such compulsion or command, because such adiaphora are then either publicly required for the sanction of false doctrine, superstition, and idolatry, and for the suppression of pure doctrine and Christian liberty, or at least are abused for this purpose by the adversaries, and are thus viewed [and are believed to be restored for this abuse and wicked end].

Note how the statement, “For in such a case it is no longer a matter of external adiaphora,” can not mean that adiaphora cease to be adiaphora in a state of confession, as Matthias Flacius had argued, because the confession explicitly maintains that adiaphora “in their nature and essence are and remain in and of themselves free.” This goes directly against Flacius’ contention that in the context of confession adiaphora cease to be adiaphora. The formulators argue here that in a state of confession the issue shifts from being about adiaphora to being about the gospel.

From the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, article III:

3] Now, when we consider this dissent aright, it has been caused chiefly by this, that the term Gospel is not always employed and understood in one and the same sense, but in two ways, in the Holy Scriptures, as also by ancient and modern church teachers. 4] For sometimes it is employed so that there is understood by it the entire doctrine of Christ, our Lord, which He proclaimed in His ministry upon earth, and commanded to be proclaimed in the New Testament, and hence comprised in it the explanation of the Law and the proclamation of the favor and grace of God, His heavenly Father, as it is written, Mark 1, 1: The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And shortly afterwards the chief heads are stated: Repentance and forgiveness of sins. Thus, when Christ after His resurrection commanded the apostles to preach the Gospel in all the world, Mark 16, 15, He compressed the sum of this doctrine into a few words, when He said, Luke 24, 46. 47: Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations. So Paul, too, calls his entire doctrine the Gospel, Acts 20, 21; but he embraces the sum of this doctrine under the two heads: Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. 5] And in this sense the generalis definitio, that is, the description of the word Gospel, when employed in a wide sense and without the proper distinction between the Law and the Gospel is correct, when it is said that the Gospel is a preaching of repentance and the remission of sins. For John, Christ, and the apostles began their preaching with repentance and explained and urged not only the gracious promise of the forgiveness of sins, but also the Law of God. 6] Furthermore the term Gospel is employed in another, namely, in its proper sense, by which it comprises not the preaching of repentance, but only the preaching of the grace of God, as follows directly afterwards, Mark 1, 15, where Christ says: Repent, and believe the Gospel.

This distinction between two senses can also be used to end the ELS controversy about the ministry. This is what the PMW attempts to do. It has failed, but not because this basic approach is flawed. It did not express itself clearly and simply enough, nor did it show how much of our traditional vocabulary relating to ministry has also acquired multiple senses, so that we have two frameworks of meaning built upon the same vocabulary, and nearly identical expressions. Continue reading “Two Senses” →

I’ve been reading The Struggle to Reclaim the Liturgy in the Lutheran Church by James Waddell, published by the Edwin Mellen Press. It’s worth reading for those interested in the theology of adiaphora and liturgy. Though scholarly and well researched, it’s quite engaging. I find myself looking forward to more opportunities to sit and read this book.

Here is a quote from pages 48-49, to whet your appetite.

To speak of liturgy only in the way of the gospel, with regard to the church’s authority to order its external rites and ceremonies, is to ignore the confessional proposition that humanly instituted rites and ceremonies are ordered by the church in the way of both law and gospel, and it is to run dangerously close to confusing law and gospel in the discourse on liturgy. We receive as gift what is given. The prescribed order is gift given by God — the gospel and the sacraments. What is externally ordered for the good of the church, however, is given to the church by the church and not by God, and the church is free to retain, omit or change these externally ordered rites and ceremonies according to the church’s needs for edification as these relate to changing times and circumstances. To say what is ordered by the church is for the good of the church is a way of speaking which is very much different fram saying that a particular liturgical form is the “best.” Optimum esse is not bene esse, and the confessional witness does not speak this way. Optimum esse runs in the way of opinion. Bene esse runs in the way of the law and the gospel. Clearly a distinction must be made between what is given by the church for the church on the one hand, and what is given by God on the other.

For the moment, I can live with The Public Ministry of the Word, the doctrinal statement adopted by the ELS last June. It has some serious flaws, but it can be understood in a way that accords with the Bible and the Lutheran confessions. My hope is that we can continue to study the doctrine and this statement, and either improve or replace it as we are able.

In the meantime, I’ll post below a summary of my understanding of this document. You can find the same summary here, and a longer supporting document here.

Continue reading “How I understand the ELS Ministry Statement” →