The Plucked Chicken

In AC article I, who is consenting together? Is it individuals? Ministers? Congregations? Whole associations of congregations, acting collectively? The wording provides the answer: individual congregations. Perhaps they were represented by their ministers, or severally by some designated representative, but those commonly consenting to the Lutheran doctrine were essentially congregations of varying size: churches, identified by the marks of the Church.

Here’s another quotation from an ELS father on the topic, distinguishing between the right and authority of a congregation, and the right or authority of a different kind of body.

We take it for granted that the joining together of congregations ought only take place by orthodox – we do not say those of identical belief – congregations. A merger like that American-Lutheran General Synod is a babel, just another organization of many disunited churches. But orthodox congregations also have to watch with the most extreme diligence that through their joining together and through their adopting a constitution for it, that while they do relinquish a portion of their freedom and independence voluntarily in love and with concern for their own as well as the common good, that they do not, however, transfer to the synod or to the joint-church such rights or such power which the Lord has not only entrusted to the congregations themselves, but whose exercise by themselves is the best guarantee for the preservation of the pure faith, for example, installing and removing pastors, practicing church discipline, and adopting hymnbooks and school books. But even less must congregations give to the joint-church or its officers such a power and authority that their decisions should be binding law for the congregations by virtue of a divine authority which should be due them as those who are over them according to the Fourth Commandment – even if their decisions do not conflict with the Word of God. Such a concession on the part of the congregations would make the synod a papacy which would be just as unchristian as the one which reigns in Rome. It would make the congregations slaves of men and would place a yoke upon them which would be heavier to bear and more difficult to remove than that which imprisons and oppresses them in the state churches.

The history of the church past and present shouts its warning! There is the papacy where the congregations, as is well known, are as good as deprived of all their rights. The church, as it is called, that is, the clergy, with the pope at the head, possesses them. As a worldly authority it demands unconditional obedience according to the Fourth Commandment.

The yoke of bondage which laid upon the congregations under the papacy, the Lord lifted through Luther, when as an angel of God this man brought the pure Gospel to light and taught believers to know the Christian liberty which Christ earned for them with his death, and the church learned to know the rights which the Lord of the church had given it in the power of the keys. And even where he agreed that certain of these rights were exercised by the worldly princes because of the congregations’ plight, there, with all the rest of the reformers, Luther is untiring in reminding both them and the congregations of the fact that they did not exercise this power as rulers but only because it was transferred to them by the congregations who possessed it as they who were looked upon as the congregations’ first and leading members because of their power and position. The power which they possessed as rulers only gave them occasion and right to serve the congregations so much more as members of the congregation.

Note. In an opinion from the year 1536 which was also signed by Bugenhagen, Melanchthon, Jonas and Myconius Luther says:

The calling and electing of orthodox servants of the church is properly and primarily not the business of the civil authorities but of the church. When the civil authority is a believer and a member of the church, then he calls not because he is a civil authority but because he is a member of the church; because “my kingdom is not of this world” (Jo. 18:36).

In 1530 Luther writes to Melanchthon:

As sovereign a bishop may impose even less on the church since this would mean fundamentally to mix these two jurisdictions. Should he do it anyway, then he would really be a pseudo-bishop, and we, were we to give in to this, would likewise be guilty of this sacrilege. Against this godlessness and iniquity one must fight and die rather than give in. Of course I speak of the church as a church which has been separated from the political commonwealth. As sovereign, a bishop may impose upon subjects as subjects whatever seems appropriate to him as long as it is godly and permissible; the subjects are required to obey, since under these circumstances they obey not as members of the church but as citizens. For the church is a twofold person in one and the same man . … It is the same as if Pomer forces his Wittenberg parish to abide by his house rule … It is the same as if the emperor ordered all people everywhere to fast, then the members of the church would obey him too, since according to the flesh, the church is under the emperor, but the church does not obey as church. Luther’s Works, American Edition, 49, 385, 386.

The whole address is online.

This could as easily be under the Synod topic, but I’d like to consider it more as a look at Christian doctrine in general, as seen in the history of our synod.

I had promised to post some material from ELS history on the subject of synodical decisions and power. Here’s an interesting paragraph from Bjug Harstad just after the formation of the ELS. He’s giving an example of encroachment upon the rights that a congregation has by virtue of possessing the Keys.

Similar abuse and encroachment have evolved in more recent times even in our Lutheran free church here in this country. They have come from another direction, namely, from the Reformed church which has always wanted to have a finger in the governing of public affairs. When prosperity increased among us, it happened, unnoticed by many, that the presidents were not to have any pastoral call but were only to be presidents. In that way people got a kind of ecclesiastical prelates who were over pastors and congregations. What their right and authority are, really now consists most nearly in whatever is pleasing to that individual. In practice, some have espoused the belief that if a pastor does not want to belong to the large church body to which his congregation belongs, then the congregation is thereby either without a pastor and can only proceed to the election of another, or the pastor is to be dismissed even if there is no other complaint against him than that he cannot swear loyalty to their church body.

President Moldstad quoted from the same address in his own address to the 2006 synod convention. It was a really good quote, calling us to analyze whether we are doing well to provide for the Christian education of children. Just before the quotation that President Moldstad used is this, somewhat more pertinent to our present topic:

If one of the equal brethren is elected to be president, then everyone must know that he has only received a human appointment to the office of servant, which everyone also otherwise actually has according to the Master’s example to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the insight, knowledge and experience with which he can be equipped. At all times, however, he is only an advisor, and as other Christians, is in duty bound to point to what is written.

He himself is to guard himself against the conceit that he is now a head higher than the others and also always remember that he has no other duty or authority than diligently to serve the others in the things with which they have charged him, either in the constitution or in other mutually agreed upon arrangements. Such an office, I believe, ought to be discharged by everyone in turns, if possible.

Bjug Harstad and his contemporaries in the Norwegian Synod of the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (called the “little” Norwegian Synod) were sensitive to some things concerning synodical organization. It’s good to review these writings whenever we can.

The very first article in the Augsburg Confession begins “Our churches teach with common consent…” This is the translation of these descriptive and normative words: “Ecclesiae magno consensu apud nos docent.” It appears to my untrained eye that “magno consensu” has been translated “with common consent.” This appears to be closely related to our concept of consensus, in English.

There are some interesting points in the Wikipedia article on consensus. For example:

The role of a facilitator in a consensus decision-making process can be much more difficult than that of a simple-majority-party leader if group members distrust each other or unconsciously use manipulative techniques. For a proponent of any given alternative, reducing objections to their plan by eliciting information or preferences from proponents of other alternatives is difficult if people distrust each other. Manipulative opponents can find it advantageous to misrepresent their concerns or refuse to negotiate – an analogous problem to that of strategic voting. For these reasons, consensus processes usually require trust among participants and skilled, patient facilitators able to synthesise the state of a proposal.

An argument against consensus decision is that few motivated facilitators are willing to assign themselves a role guiding processes rather than pursuing and promoting specific measures empowering themselves. Dee Hock said of his role at Visa International – an organisation focused on making profit – that it was something that anyone could do, but almost no one learned to do well, and which was largely thankless. Similar sentiments have been echoed by many “leaders” of organizations committed to peace, ecology, and social justice, which tend to have diffuse benefits, and concentrated costs (an instance of the tragedy of the commons issue in political economy, and of the public good problem).

I think that this paragraph describes the current state of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod:

Some organizations have abandoned consensus decision-making for simple majority, judging that the difficulty of building a process to formally weigh all of these factors is not worth it, and that these factors can be handled better informally (i.e. in offline discussions before and after debate) than through the process of consensus itself, at the risk of creating a de facto clique that makes the real decisions.

In many organizations, with most decisions, this is not a problem. However, in a body of churches seeking to confess doctrine, a policy of simple majority rule can easily, even unintentionally, deny the normative authority of holy scripture. Historically, Lutherans have emphatically condemned majority rule as a determination of doctrine.

The danger is especially real when the body allows a few both to interpret doctrine for them and to make executive decisions on their behalf. In effect, what results is a papistic rule over the body, essentially trumping holy scripture. This may become apparent by a misapplication of the fourth commandment to eliminate the individual’s right to judge doctrine. In other words, “Obey your Papa in all things, because he knows better than you do.” This easily-repeatable situation was recognized by Martin Luther, with a little help from Eck.

The forefathers of the ELS were sensitive to these issues, having experienced certain abuses first-hand. I will try to post links to or portions of our ELS fathers’ writings about pitfalls they recognized.

The churches are not asking the bishops to restore concord at the expense of their honor, even though it would be proper for good pastors to do this. They ask only that the bishops release unjust burdens that are new and have been received contrary to the custom of the universal Church.

AC XXVIII, 71-72

We refuse to be guided by those who are offended by our church customs. We adhere to them all the more firmly when someone wants to cause us to have a guilty conscience on account of them. It is truly distressing that many of our fellow Christians find the difference between Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism in outward things. It is a pity and dreadful cowardice when a person sacrifices the good ancient church customs to please the deluded American denominations just so they won’t accuse of being Roman Catholic! Indeed!

Read the rest, and discover the source, at Cyberbrethren. Go ahead, click the link and read the rest. It’s worth your time.